


Inimitable

by deniigiq



Series: Inimitable Verse [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Graduate School, M/M, Multi, Overworking, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Superheroes, Team Dynamics, Team Red, Team as Family, Teambuilding, Work-Life Balance, peter is 25 in this, what work-life balance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-21 01:46:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 45,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14906117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq
Summary: “Peter, is it supposed to be doing that?” One of his students asked him. He looked up to see the industrial-strength magnets he’d collected for this lab trying to crack through the glass between them to be reunited. The glass splintered.“Yeah, no. That’s totally fine,” he lied. Then he inconspicuously chased everyone to the corner of the lab, donned a glove, and smashed the glass so that it wouldn’t splinter and stab someone in the eye in its explosion.His students cheered.He needed a drink.(Peter gets called back to the city at the age of 25 to help mitigate the rapidly increasing crime rate. He's in way over his head, so he sets out to re-establish Team Red.)





	1. back to the grind

**Author's Note:**

> Hi friends, I've been craving a bit of a challenge and so decided to try to write another chaptered fic (anyone who has been with me since Electric Sheep knows I fucking loathe writing long stories). So here is my self-indulgent attempt at playing with Team Red's relationships with an older Peter and after a bit of distance.

“Peter, I know it’s been a minute and I know you’re doing the college thing, but give me a call ASAP. It’s Spiderman-related.”

Peter stared at the phone in his hand, exhausted. White noise buzzed in the back of his head. His eyes hurt, his back hurt, his shoulders hurt. And he knew exactly why Mr. Stark was calling. He just didn’t know if he had the emotional or physical capacity to do what he was going to ask.

Spiderman was on hiatus while Peter Parker completed his Master’s in Material Science and Engineering at Cornell. He’d made a few exciting appearances over the summer and winter breaks for the last year and a half, but this year? Ha ha, no. Fuck no. Fuck that. Peter needed to spend his valuable time regretting every decision he’d ever made which led him to try to get a Master’s like a fucking moron.

He dropped the phone on his face.

It was Fate speaking. Punishing him for his hubris.

He groaned out loud in the darkness of his room.

The guy in the apartment above him was playing something with a heavy base.

Peter needed sleep. He needed sleep, and then he needed about a pint of coffee, and then he needed to update the journal’s website, and after all that was done he would call Mr. Stark back for sure.

He threw the phone into the laundry hamper and rolled over with enormous effort.

 

 

“Kid, I _know_ you got that last message, which is why I know that _you_ know that you can’t avoid this. Call me back. Now.”

Peter dropped his head against his desk and groaned out loud.

He had _homework_ , Mr. Stark. And group work, and lab work, and work-work, and the all-important task of cultivating self-loathing.

It was a busy fucking schedule, Mr. Stark. Where exactly was a 4 hour car ride and Spiderman supposed to fit into that?

He took his head off the table and took some deep, steady breaths. In. 1. 2. 3. Out. 1. 2. 3. Priorities. He needed to study because he had an assessment for semi-conductors tomorrow. It was at 8 ‘o clock in the morning. He could not afford to fail that test. He could not. After that, he would call Mr. Stark.

 

 

“Peter if you don’t call me back, I will take the suit and fly my old-ass over there. I will hack every computer you own. I will call every one of your professors. Call. Me. Now.”

It took five minutes of deep breathing before Peter was willing to relinquish the fantasy of finding the nearest lake and hurling his phone into it. His calendar told him he had to TA in fifteen minutes.

He dialed while deep breathing.

“Thank Jesus, he lives,” Mr. Stark answered.

“I. Am. Very. _Very._ Busy,” Peter gritted out, as calmly and clearly as he could. He gave himself points for not crying. Honestly, he deserved like a million points for not crying every day he didn’t. On the days he did, he deserved partial credit.

“Doing what? Homework? C’mon kid, you’re smarter than that, you don’t need homework.”

Peter heroically tamped down the fantasies of phone-throwing again.

“I can’t,” He said with finality, knowing that Mr. Stark would know exactly which question he was answering.

“Peter, I’m not asking you to do this as Tony Stark.”

“I can’t. I’ll say it one more time. I can’t.”

“This is New York, Peter. This is your home.”

“And this is my _life_ , Mr. Stark. My _future._ If I could, you know I’d be there. I’ve gone back every time you’ve asked. Every time they’ve needed me. But I can’t anymore. Not right now; I have to do what’s right for me. And getting the living shit beaten out of me weeks before finals is not right for me.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

“This is what’s right for Spiderman.”

Peter laughed. And laughed and laughed.

“Peter, you know what I mean. Spiderman protects New York City—”

“Spiderman _protected_ New York City,” Peter corrected, “And Spiderman will continue to protect New York City, once Spiderman gets his goddamn diploma. Don’t call me again.”

He hung up fucking furious.

 

 

“Peter, listen. I talked to Pepper and Rhodey and they think I approached this in the wrong way, and I think they’re totally right, but—”

Peter deleted the message.

 

 

 **TS:** Peter, call me.

 **TS:** Answer your phone.

 **TS:** Answer your phone.

 **TS:** Answer your phone.

 **TS:** Answer your phone.

 **TS:** Answer your phone.

 **TS:** GODDAMNIT KID I AINT FUCKING AROUND ANY MORE.

 **TS:** Fuck, sorry that was uncalled for.

 **TS:** Peter. Please.

 **PP:** I am busy. Leave me the fuck alone. Put out an Avengers Assemble if you want a hero so bad.

 

 

**AA: AVENGERS ASSEMBLE. ALL AVAILABLE BODIES TO LOCATION 4.**

**CAP:** Currently occupied.

 **BLW:** Currently occupied x2. Our ETA 2 hrs min

 **FAL:** Currently occupied x3

 **HKY:** Man I am litakhrkgaeh

 **HKY:** asdkfhsdfeel

 **HKY:** asdopo l,;.;l.;.;.;.;l.;

 **HKY:** asdiuaweiwoeljllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

 **WNS:** the fuck are you barton you aren’t in my sights

 **WNS:** Nvm found him. ETA 45 min need a medic

 **ATM:** Otw

 **SCW:** On the way

 **HLK:** I’m in Ottawa; is this an actual emergency

 **IRM:** Like a Level 7. Sending Quinjet

 **HLK** : get fucked. Hulk only comes out for 11

 

 

Peter slammed his head into the counter. Then did it again to make sure that he was still capable of feeling. He looked up to find everyone in the lab staring at him, horrified. He blearily singled out the other lab instructor.

“Chanda?”

She stood on her tip toes to see him above the crowd of students at the second lab station.

“Yes, Peter?”

“I have to leave early. Can you take over?”

“Yeah, I got that feeling. I’ve got it. I hope everything is alright.”

He got about a yard away from the lab door before breaking into a sprint down the hallway. He leapt down the stairwell. The walls were faster than the actual stairs and he only scared the shit out of like four people, so he decided not to be bothered about it. He hit the first floor and shot through the double doors and across campus, bag thumping against his back as he went.

 **PP:** On the way

 

 

Here’s what happened.

Around the start of the new year, there was a domestic terrorist attack in NYC. It was contained, it was dealt with, there were only 2 deaths in what could have been hundreds.

The problem was that it was biological.

The ass-wipe who caused the event, some Columbia reject, had made a mixture which sent peoples’ bodies into overdrive and ramped up levels of aggression. Again. Not surprising, not uncommon. Only two deaths. Certainly not an Avengers-level threat.

If Spiderman had been in the city, it probably would have been a Spiderman-level threat. Since Spiderman was not in the city, it was an X-men level threat.

Like intelligent, capable mutants, they handled it. From what Peter had heard, even Deadpool had gotten involved. That was great, he hadn’t heard from Wade in ages.

But of course, things could never be that easy. The drug was biological and hundreds if not thousands of people had been exposed to it. Most people went to local pharmacies and urgent cares and hospitals to get a vaccine or a cure, depending on the level of exposure. But some people, usually those pre-disposed to aggression or violence, really _really_ liked the new drug. It made them more daring. It made them feel invincible. It made getting away with petty crime a lot easier and it made some people eager to up the ante.

Petty crime rates were through the roof. As petty crime rates rose, so did violent crime rates. The number of shootings increased, as did stabbings and physical assaults.

It was getting to the point where people were scared to walk out by themselves in broad daylight, much less at night.

These were Spiderman-level problems. This was what Peter was known for. This was what Daredevil was known for. This was what the increasing population of young, enhanced heros/vigilantes were becoming known for.

And Peter thought the young folks (and boy was it weird to be thinking of them as young folks) and the new folks were doing a great job for their lack of resources and expertise. All they needed was a little more coordination and a lot more experience before they’d really get shit done on the scale they seemed to want to. Peter was willing to give them the time to figure this out; he didn’t have too much choice in the matter anyways. It had been one thing for him to run around the city like a maniac when he was doing his undergrad at CUNY, but now he just couldn’t spend all his time commuting from Ithaca to NYC.

Luckily, there were a few Spiderman copycats, as well as a handful of Daredevil copycats, and Peter probably shouldn’t have been flattered, but he was. It made his hiatuses a lot less evident and it was kind of nice to be recognized as such an influential super in the community that people wanted to mimic him.

It was sweet.

It was stupid as fuck.

But it was sweet.

Despite all these efforts, shit didn’t seem to be slowing down at all. If anything it was ramping up. Peter had carefully ignored the news for the last few months, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that Aunt May told him that she was tired and working extra shifts because the hospital was receiving more and more victims. He couldn’t ignore Ned texting him to say that he’d been mugged on his way home from Columbia; he was fine, but he’d been a little scared and he told Peter he missed him.

Where the fuck was Double D? Even though he didn’t watch or read it as a rule, Peter had to read little bits of news for the journal he worked for; every Daredevil sighted had a different suit and none of them looked like Double D’s. They weren’t tall enough or skinny enough or violent enough to be The Double D, either. People in Hell’s Kitchen seemed to know this; many suspected that Daredevil had left their community; a few people were quoted as saying that they didn’t blame him after all the shit that went down with the most recent DA. She’d apparently set her phasers to kill on him and had chased him out of town.

Peter didn’t know about that. Double D loved nothing more than to sit in the middle of a shitstorm of his own making. He’d never back down from a fight.

It was more likely he was dead.

The thought made his diaphragm squirm.

He tried to forget it on the bus ride home. He texted Aunt May to ask if he could spend the night in his old room. She was ecstatic to see him.

 

 

Peter got to the city and headed straight for the meeting point. He arrived at Location 4 a good four hours after everyone else. Only Barton and Barnes were there when he got there, and that was because Barton had a concussion and Barnes was charged with waking him up every twenty minutes.

Barnes looked about as exhausted as Peter felt. He was covered in grease paint and his Kevlar was scraped to hell. When he noticed Peter, he waved tiredly, but didn’t say anything.

“I feel that,” Peter told him empathetically. Barnes huffed out a laugh and nodded before returning to something on his phone.

 

 

“Well, look who decided to turn up,” Mr. Stark announced when Peter made it to the conference room. Dr. Banner and Sam Wilson were in there with him. Mr. Wilson was wearing the stars and stripes which meant Rogers-Cap was probably off undercover with the Black Widow. Either that or Rogers-Cap was on the cusp of having finally had enough and was training Mr. Wilson to take over for him.

Peter wondered who would take up his mantle one day.

He didn’t grace Mr. Stark with a response.

“Threat-level?” he said, more of a statement than a question. Mr. Wilson smiled at him.

“Damn, Pete. Look at you. Tall as hell.”

His smile was infectious, and he was the first person to indicate any pleasure in seeing Peter, so Peter gave him a tired smile in return.

“Just doing my job, Captain America, sir,” he said. It worked and made Mr. Wilson laugh.

Mr. Stark was not amused. Dr. Banner was giving him a very serious look which Peter knew by this point meant ‘do not say what you want to say.’ Amazing how a few years away from home taught you how to read peoples’ faces.

He wiped the smile off to show Mr. Stark that he was not happy to be there.

“I’m here,” he said with a gesture, “Exactly as you asked. So. Threat-level?”

“Yeah, and it only took 82 phone calls and an Avengers Assemble,” Mr. Stark said flatly.

Peter squashed the burning in his throat. He didn’t have to defend himself; he was an adult. He had a life outside being a superhero. He got to make his own choices now, and for the first and probably only time in his life, he was going to put himself first. He tilted a defiant chin up at Mr. Stark. Mr. Wilson didn’t bother hiding his grin.

“I’m here,” Peter reiterated, “Five hours away from home on short notice while I could be earning my degree. Tell me what’s going on, so I can book my five-hour trip back to school on short notice so that I can go back to earning my degree.”

“He’s gotten sassy,” Mr. Wilson noted approvingly. Mr. Stark clenched his jaw.

“I wouldn’t call you back to the city for something if it wasn’t important,” Mr. Stark said.

“No, you’d call me 82 times even after I said I was busy,” Peter countered.

“And lo and behold, not so busy now.”

“I left lab for this and I’m missing two more sections if this takes until Sunday. I had to reschedule my shifts at work, move my group’s meeting to Tuesday, and hand over all my shit to the other website mod and editing assistants. I can assure you, Mr. Stark, I continue to be very busy.”

“Tough, kiddo. There’s been eighty shootings this month and even more assaults. Things are escalating; people are organizing. We need Spiderman’s support in finding out who is leading these groups.”

Peter narrowed eyes and cocked out a hip.

“Is there a reason the combined skills of the entire Avengers team are inadequate for this?” he asked.

“We don’t have the same kind of profile you do,” Mr. Wilson said. “People know that Spiderman looks out for the little guy. If Iron Man and Scarlet Witch started running around helping grandmas cross the street, people are going to know something is up and they’re gonna push back harder than before.”

Peter considered this. It wasn’t an unfair assessment.

“We just need you to do your thing for a little while, Pete,” Mr. Wilson said, “Re-establish your legitimacy. The lookalikes are cute, but they don’t know what they’re doing. A few of them are even getting hurt trying to do what you do.”

Flattery will get you everywhere, Mr. Wilson.

Peter looked at Mr. Stark.

“Why now? I literally graduate in summer. I’m moving back here in summer.”

“They’re organizing now, but they aren’t all on board,” Mr. Wilson said. “We need to get a handle on the situation before they start consolidating and making systems.”

Peter appreciated what Mr. Wilson was doing, but he wanted an answer from Mr. Stark.

“I’m not trying to interfere in your life, Peter,” Mr. Stark finally said, “We just need your help, you’re the one with the right skills and reputation for this. I’m--” He looked like he’d found a bit of grit in his teeth, “I’m sorry for dragging you all this way; I should have told you this over the phone to begin with.”

 Bingo! That was the right answer. Thank you and good night.

He let the tension out of his shoulders and shrugged them lightly so Mr. Stark knew he wasn’t mad.

“Yeah, that would have been better; I could have made up a better excuse and gotten more time off, but I guess it can’t be helped. I’ll hit the ground this weekend and see what I can do, but—“ he pointed a fierce finger at the three of them,  “I need time to study and write and I need access to the major scientific journals and lab space.”

“Consider it done,” Mr. Stark said, “Now go find us some bad guys.”  

 

 

Peter liked to think of himself as a man of his word, so he went out in the suit as soon as he got his shit settled at Aunt May’s house. Well, as soon as she had stopped fawning over him and lecturing him about how skinny he was. He escaped by promising they’d go to breakfast when he got in that morning and he set off for the usual haunts.

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

The snippets of news he’s allowed himself to read were depressing, but not half as depressing as setting foot into his once, reasonably crime-ridden city and finding it absolutely crawling with shitheads.

Cockroaches, he decided.

They weren’t especially smart about it, that’s not how the drug worked, so Peter spent a merry several hours knocking out and tying down jerk after jerk after jerk. He got a warm welcome on the whole (he took one handbag to the gut and a few baseball bats/tire irons to the shoulder, but it was New York, that was kind of to be expected). People seemed to recognize that he was the real deal pretty quickly.

 “Honey, where on earth have you been,” one of the older ladies he used to run into on a semi-regular basis declared.

“Uh, honestly? Grad school.”

She looked him up and down and patted his shoulder proudly.

“That’s a good boy, you go and get your education.”

It was nice to be back.

 

 

After dickhead #13, Peter ran into another Spiderman. Spidergirl? Spiderwoman? He didn’t even know. She was real scrappy. He happened to alight on the rooftop she was watching the streets from.

She was up in a flash as soon as he’d gotten up to both feet. She held herself like someone who’d practiced martial arts.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, as though he was the one copying her.

That was cute.

Her suit was definitely made out of spandex, it was even shiny. Thankfully, it looked like she’d added some bits of leather to it to help with the grip. Judging by the weird way she was breathing, she hadn’t quite figured out which fabric to use over the lower face. Her eyes were extra shiny; like plastic, like googles. She couldn’t be older than the undergrads in his lab. Mr. Wilson said that they were going to be taking care of the copycat situation, so technically she wasn’t his problem, which was perfect. He had enough problems without having to play who’s-who with a copycat.

He’d run two perps straight into the alley on the right-hand side of the building; they were trying to climb the chain link fence which separated the mouth of the alley from the main road. He didn’t have time to play.

He jumped off the building and landed loud enough behind them to shock them into looking back.

He waved at their wide eyes.

 

 

“Wow, you’re heavy,” Peter groaned as he dragged the two squirming bodies towards the other side of the alley where the police would very soon be arriving.

“How’d you do that?”

His whole body jumped. He hadn’t heard her approach over the unconscious whining of the guys in his hands. Do not engage, he told himself, remembering how he used to deal with Wade. Aw, Wade. He wondered how he was doing.

He leaned both of his perps up against the brick, wrapped up nice and neat in webbing. He added a little extra so they couldn’t wriggle away if they woke up before the cops got there.

“Hey, you deaf?” the Spiderman asked.

Rude. Had he been that rude when he was younger? He remembered Double D firmly ignoring him until he said ‘may I’ instead of ‘can I,’ that one time, just because he could. God, what an asshole. He missed those idiots.

“Hey,” she said, louder this time.

He looked up for a good place to perch while he found the next target.

“HEY.”

“What?” he finally snapped.

She looked like she hadn’t planned that far.

“Uh, how did you--?” she trailed off.

“Magic,” he told her. He took a step back to jump up onto the wall, but when he tried to, he didn’t move.

“The hell?”

He looked down to find that she’d spider-monkey-ed onto his torso.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

He tried to shake her off. That didn’t work. He tried prying instead. Bitch had a fucking grip. He employed the good ole ‘drop and crawl,’ which surprised her enough that it broke her grip. He leapt up and launched himself at the wall and caught hold of it.

“No way!” he heard her call. “Wait! Wait! You’re the real thing!”

“Go home,” he told her, hauling himself up over the edge of the roof. He was a good three stories up. He nearly had a heart attack when he turned around because there she fucking was.

How?

What?

Was she--?

No. Couldn’t be.

“You’re the real thing!” she said again.

No fucking way.

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“You’re Spiderman,” she said, “The _real_ Spiderman.”

“And you’re Spiderman, the _unreal_ Spiderman,” he told her.

“Wow, you sound a lot younger than I thought you’d be,” she said.

Peter had the distinct and uncomfortable impression that he was in the presence of a fan. He had never in his life prepared for this. The closest he’d ever gotten was Ned, and Ned got a pass because he was contractually obligated to be Peter’s biggest fan. Aunt May had appointed him as such in her place when Peter had turned 18. She cited high blood pressure as the reason for her stepping down, and benevolently didn’t mention that Peter was the one who caused it.

“I am hideously old,” he assured her. He needed to get the hell out of Dodge. He started scanning for a new perch.

“Wait, how did you do that thing?” she asked. Peter was consistently amazed at the opaque questions people around his students’ age asked. He resisted the urge to make her re-ask the question in a more specific way. It was a close thing, though.

“Magic,” he told her.

“Are you a mutant?” she asked, “Oh my god, are you an actual spider under there? Is this your human—”

Peter could take it no longer.

“NO. No. No. I’m just. I’m Spiderman. Just Spiderman. I climb the walls, shoot the web, fight the bad guys; don’t you watch Youtube?”

“Of _course_ I watch Youtube.” She sounded like she was getting frustrated.

She reached up and went to yank off her cowl. Peter caught her hand just in time.

“No, no, no, no, no,” he told her, “First rule about being Spiderman, we do not take off the mask.”

She lit up.

“What’s the second rule?”

“The second rule is that we leave Spiderman alone to fight crime and we go home and sleep and never fight bad guys again.”

The Spiderman was unimpressed. Peter could see a pout through spandex a mile away. He didn’t have time for this. He crossed the roof and spied a new roost. The Spidey Sense decided to make an appearance and tickled the nape of his neck. He whipped his head back just in time to see the copycat following him.

Oh, hell no.

“Oh, hell no,” he told her, “No. You are not following me.”

“I can help,” she declared.

“I’m sure you can, but tonight is about efficiency, not effectiveness,” Peter told her. He shot out a web to the new roost and leapt off the building, pulling hard to bring throw himself up.

He glanced back and saw that she was watching his back. He shot up another web to boost himself higher and climbed until he was positive he was out of sight.

This was going to be harder than he expected.

 

 


	2. into the fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If this kept up he was gonna need more back up.  
> What he needed—no--what the city needed was a team.  
> He had one in mind.  
> But if his hunch was right, it wasn’t gonna be easy to get it together.

Peter spent two days and two nights being the most conspicuous and outrageous Spiderman he could be. He made sure to catch the notice of as many amateur photographers as possible to get his mask in the papers.

He saved a dozen old ladies and a handful of guys from being murdered and had accumulated a collection of no less than sixteen guns. He laid these in one of the fruit bowls in Mr. Stark’s communal kitchens. When Mr. Wilson swung by, he was appropriately impressed. Miss Potts (or was she Stark now?) was not and wanted them out of the kitchen.

Peter only stayed long enough to grab lunch and go, but when he came back later to knock up some more webbing, he found that the collection had been transferred from the bowl to a cardboard box.

That was fine with him; he added the three extra he’d acquired on the way in.

He mixed up the webbing and went back onto the streets.

 

 

He’d made three headlines by the time he collapsed on the couch at home. Aunt May told him she’d be home in forty minutes and they’d go to dinner. He had to wash up. He had to edit his thesis. He had to grade the lab reports.

He wanted to do none of that.

He halfheartedly turned on the news.

“—the original Spiderman, people are saying, has returned home to the city. Our correspondent—”

Click.

“—crime rates dropping overnight thanks to the return of the amazing—”

Click.

“—you know it’s the first one ‘cause he’s all skinny with big thighs—”

Click. His thighs weren’t that big. Rude.

His phone vibrated and scared the shit of him. It was Ned congratulating him for fucking up his newsfeed and asking how long he was in the city. He sent back a dozen hearts and an ‘I’m dying.’

Aunt May texted him to let him know she was leaving the hospital.

He needed to shower. Ugh.

 

 

“You did good, Pete,” Mr. Stark told him on Sunday, reading through an article with a pretty good picture of Peter on it. Peter knew the photographer; he’d swung extra slow to help him get the shot. He groaned from where he was lying face-down on the floor of the lab.

It wasn’t Tony’s personal lab so it was alright. And it was so cold which felt so nice on his poor muscles.

“I gotta go back,” he mumbled. “Administer exam on Monday. Meeting with supervisors on Tuesday. Superconductors on Thursday.”

“I’ll drop you off,” Mr. Stark said kindly. Peter wasn’t thrilled about going back to school via Quinjet, but it did mean that the journey would take at most one hour. A beautiful, beautiful thing.

“We’re going to need a do-over next weekend,” Mr. Stark said. Peter melted even further into the floor. He needed to work out. He was so out of shape. He only had a week to recover. Fuck, he needed to grade those reports.

“Kay,” he said weakly.

“You doing okay there, kiddo?”

“Never better.”

 

 

There was a reason Peter had suspended the Spiderman shit and it was because it was a major time suck. Seriously. He crammed for days. His supervisor was so concerned, she stopped their meeting to ask if he was okay because he looked ‘a little like you’ve been hit by a truck.’

_Teach, you have no idea._

He assured her that he was fine, but he was having some personal problems back in the city. She told him that if he needed to take any extra time, to tell her and she would help him do the administrative paperwork. It was very kind of her. She also wanted to offer him a job in the lab when he graduated.

He could think of literally nothing better and worse at the same time.

He asked her if he could think about it and she said that that was perfectly fine.

His students were freaking the fuck out about Spiderman showing up in the city. Their chatter grated on his ears and he reminded himself that he was not nearly old enough to be this aggravated by excited twenty-year-olds.

“You alright, Peter?” Chanda asked him after the second time he dozed off in the middle of grading.

“’M great,” he lied. She hummed in understanding and wandered off for a minute. She returned with a Rockstar. They decided to split it.

He crammed for superconductors. Then he crammed for semi-conductors. Then he crammed for seminar and ethics. Then he fucked right back off to the city.

 

 

The tiny Spiderman had sunk her teeth in and would not leave him the fuck alone. She found him even at ten stories up.

It was a perch of complicated memories. He’d learned Wade’s name there and Wade had rubbed his back and told him that everyone would be okay when it felt like it wouldn’t. It was still a good place to look out over the city. And where the hell was Wade anyways?

“Teach me how to do it,” she said.

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” Peter told her. She thought that climbing the walls was some kind of parkour skill.

“Why not?” she demanded.

“’Cause I said so,” Peter snapped back. Between her and his students he was developing a hatred of college sophomores.

“What’s your name, then?” she asked, as if this was a logical sequence of questions.

“Spiderman, what’s yours?” he retorted.

“Spiderman,” she said.

Peter looked up heavenward.

What had he done to deserve this?

 

 

It took until the third weekend back in the city for Peter to get the snot beat out of him. He was honestly surprised to have made it that far and congratulated himself on a job well done. It hurt extra bad because he hadn’t taken damage like that in a while. Also getting stabbed just fucking hurt.

The poor little Spiderman was shocked at this and tried to intervene before Peter ended the altercation. She ended up with a gash, thankfully not too deep. Peter gave her strict instructions to wash it out and go get a tetanus shot and some stitches and to tell the doc that some guy with a broken bottle had come after her.

He’d admit that if a guy bleeding heavily from the ribs had given him the same advice, he’d have been a little skeptical himself.

She wanted to know what hospital he wanted to go to and it took him right back to that time he’d asked Wade the same thing after they’d fished Double D, unconscious, out of the Hudson.

He laughed at the irony and told her he wasn’t going to a hospital. She was horrified.

“You’ll bleed out,” she said.

“Nah, it’s just a scratch,” he told her, hearing Double D’s voice over his own.

She remained horrified.

 

 

Because Peter had shit luck sometimes, like the absolute worst, he got the snot beat out of him again the next night, only this time by another Spiderman.

That one hurt his pride more than anything else. That was good, though, because it snapped his old instincts right into place and he took the asshole down in record time. The poor schmuck hadn’t been expecting the super strength or the accuracy.

He actually had the little Spiderman to thank for that one, too; after he’d gone down, she’d jumped in and held the guy off for long enough for Peter to get his bearings. She was fierce in a fight. She obviously had MMA training and did a lot of fancy legwork.

Peter ganged up on the guy from behind while he was distracted and let his instincts do the rest.

“That was amazing!” the little Spiderman declared, practically dancing with joy. She plopped down next to where Peter was breathing out the anger. “We’re a good team.”

Peter looked at her and his gut instinct was to spit out ‘we are not a team,’ but he stopped himself. They were kind of a team, especially with the way she was sticking to him like glue. They were a little like Hawkeye and Hawkeye only less depressed and competent, respectively.

“What’s your name?” he asked her.

“Spiderman,” she said.

That was fucking fair.

 

 

“What do you do when you’re not Spiderman?” the little Spiderman asked him while he was concentrating on not passing out in an alley.

“I’m a fucking TA,” he told her, then retched a little.

“Like a--?”

“Yeah, the kind you’re thinking of, yeah.  Listen, can you get me a bottle of water? Here’s a five.”

“Dude, why?”

“’’Cause I would rather not taste this—”

“No, why are you a TA? You’re _Spiderman_.”

Aha! That’s where the self-loathing went, you sneaky little devil, you.

“Water, please,” he choked out. She went off to get it. When she was gone, Peter felt around his stomach and abs to make sure nothing was ruptured or broken. He really needed to get some training in, he couldn’t keep taking hits like this. Mr. Wilson was right, these guys were organizing and getting bolder. They’d just run into four of them and Peter wasn’t quite back into the swing of things to take all of them at once. The little Spidey had certainly helped, but Peter had never been one to fight more than two or three guys on his own. If this kept up he was gonna need more back up.

What he needed—no--what the city needed was a team.

He had one in mind.

But if his hunch was right, it wasn’t gonna be easy to get it together.

 

 

“Where are we going?” Little Spidey asked, Peter had already performed the perfunctory ‘go home, don’t follow me’ thing, so she was tagging along with him as per usual as they headed towards St. Margaret’s. He stopped a few blocks away and shrugged off his backpack.

“You got street clothes?” he asked her. She was taken aback.

“No? You said Rule One was—"

“Then you’re not going anywhere,” he told her.

He took a sharp turn towards a building he knew would be deserted. Little Spidey didn’t take the hint. She followed him.

“You don’t want to do that,” he warned her, “My ass is very pale.”

“Your—wait what? You can’t take off your—Rule one! Rule one!”

He paused before he shot some web up to the roof.

“I’m looking for a guy. I need to go into that bar--“ he pointed in the general direction ”—to find this guy. I am not walking in there as Spiderman because I don’t want to die tonight.”

Little Spidey didn’t know what to do for a moment, so Peter decided to give her some options.

“You twenty-one?” he asked.

“Uh, almost,” she said.

Perfect. Seriously, how did Wade and Double D not kill him. He needed to revise his opinions of them from grumpy, ridiculous old guys to possibly the kindest, most patient human beings in the universe.

“You older than eighteen?” he asked, trying to make sure he didn’t sound judgmental. He sure as hell wasn’t one to pull the age card here.

“Yeah,” Little Spidey confirmed.

“Alright you’ll do. Street clothes or bust,” he said, “I’m gonna wait on that roof for twenty minutes; you come back, we’re going, you don’t, I’m going.”

“Why?” Little Spidey demanded, “Why do you need another guy? We’re a team, you and me. We’ve done a great job. Is this--? Am I not good enough or something? Is it ‘cause I’m a girl?”

She sounded more pissed off than upset by the end of it, so Peter wasn’t too worried. He also didn’t want to be a jerk about it. Or lie to her. They _were_ a pretty good team, he wasn’t going to kid himself. Little Spidey was extremely useful; she had been for the last few weeks and she hadn’t even left when he’d gotten kicked in the head and puked all over himself. That was dedication.

“We’re a good team,” he told her, “But I’m not good enough at this hero thing to do what needs to happen here.”

“You’re a plenty good hero,” she defended, “You’ve saved me a bunch of times and like a million other people. You save people all the time, even the ones that wale on you.”

Aw, where was she when the self-loathing was strong?

Also what was he supposed to say here? Team Red had been a thing but hadn’t really had a media presence, so there wasn’t anything he could point to and say ‘that, I need to remake that.’ It also probably wouldn’t look too great for anyone if he explained that, as a fifteen-year-old, he’d gotten close to Daredevil (renown for breaking heads and teeth) and Deadpool (renowned for breaking everyone and everything). The pedophilic implications alone would probably send Little Spidey into a tizzy. It had almost everyone else; and anyways, he’d be worried if she didn’t immediately go there. Funny how normal it had seemed when he was a kid. Welp, that _was_ the way with things wasn’t it?

“I need to get ahold of Deadpool,” he told her honestly, “He and I have a history and if we want to get to the bottom of this clusterfuck, then I guarantee you, Deadpool is our man.”

“A history? What kind of history? Did you fuck Deadpool?” Little Spidey asked.

Peter decided she didn’t need to know more than that for right now. He shrugged. He could see her grimace under the spandex.

“You’re nasty,” she declared. “I’ll be back, don’t go without me.”

She ran off the opposite direction. Peter wondered if she’d stashed some clothes somewhere like he used to or if she was going home. He swung up to the building to change.

 

 

It was a big show of trust, breaking Rule One. Normally, Peter would break it only under threat of loss of life, but be things as they were, he didn’t have too much choice. Little Spidey wasn’t going to leave him alone and he needed to find Wade. There were no other options.

He could just slink off now and hunt down Wade, but fuck him, he couldn’t bring himself to break a promise. He would give her twenty minutes to the second.

He realized at the ten-minute-mark that he had no idea who he was supposed to be looking out for and she had no idea who she was supposed to be meeting.

He laughed really hard into that dark night.

 

 

“Are you serious?” Peter heard Little Spidey say as he hung upside and swayed. He’d decided he missed Karen, it had been ages since he needed to give voice commands to the suit.

He looked up.

Little Spidey was a teeny tiny Latina with so much hair; hella hair, woah, where did she put it? She wore a black hoodie and old boots. She had a faded red backpack with her. Aw. It almost matched Peter’s faded yellow one at home.

He hoisted himself up and then threw his bag into a corner and sprayed web on it. Little Spidey seemed a little shell-shocked. He held out a hand to her. She didn’t get it.

“Your bag,” he said, “Gimme.”

She clutched it.

“Why?”

“You want it stolen?”

“No?”

“Then gimme.” He said, gesturing to his own. She handed it over reluctantly. He tossed it next to his and sent some more web on it.

“No one’s getting through that,” he told her. He went closer and measured her up.

“What do you drink?” he asked.

She frowned.

“Is this some kind of chat up thing or--?”

Peter made sure she got his full teacher I-am-disappointed-in-you look. It had the desired effect. Ha. Sophomores.

“What do you drink?” he asked again.

“Uh? Nothing?”

Peter grinned at her.

“Smart girl, that’s right. Nothing. You’re my DD. I’m about to get sloshed.”

 

 

St. Margaret’s was predictably full of the scourge of humanity. Little Spidey dug a hand into the back of his Henley not to lose him. Fucking bony knuckles, yikes. He bellied up to the bar and ordered two drinks, one of which he tried to feed to Little Spidey, who played the part and irritably told him to stop taunting her.

He drank both drinks and ordered a third. He entertained himself by watching Little Spidey experience the scourge of humanity. He drank the third drink fast and ordered a fourth. At this point, Little Spidey was trying to figure out if she was aiding and abetting a alcoholic vigilante.

At the fifth, she grabbed his hand and said, “maybe you should slow down.”

Peter grinned at her, the buzz happily settling in the back of his head.

“Nah, you’re right.” He waved at the bartender. He was very familiar, but he wouldn’t recognize Peter, he was sure of it. Wade had introduced them when Peter was seventeen, and Peter looked like an entirely different human being now. He was much taller and had five o’clock shadow to boot.

“Make that two,” he told the guy. Little Spidey just barely contained her horror. She yanked him back over.

“Is this just an excuse for you to get drunk?” she spat. Peter leaned in close.

“I am going to need approximately twelve of these to get as drunk as I am about to pretend to be,” he whispered.

She looked up at him in confusion. He gave her a finger gun, then knocked back the two drinks, one right after the other. Enhanced metabolisms were great when you were DD; otherwise they could go take a hike; he was always so _hungry._

The guy at the bar did not give a fuck if Peter got alcohol poisoning at his counter and Peter respected that kind of honesty. After the fifth drink he’d put a little stagger into his leaning, and after the seventh he gave himself a good slur and told Little Spidey all about quarks. She was not even a little interested, preoccupied as she was with watching several guys at the pool table in the back playing quarters with a stiletto.

He very gently brushed her arm to let her know that he was about to engage in their business. He gestured to the bartender.

“I need to kill a guy,” he slurred, “You know anyone?”

Little Spidey was horrified, Peter threw on arm around her neck in an affectionate way, but mostly to keep her facing the quarters game. He didn’t need her rookie-face fucking up his perfectly good homicide ruse.

The guy at the bar evaluated him.

“Scale of 1 to 10, how serious are you?” he asked. Weasel. That was his name, or at least what Wade had called him.

“12,” Peter assured him, making sure to make eye contact, “I’d kill him myself, but I got a job lined up under that shithead.” He felt Little Spidey’s tiny sharp intake of air.

The guy behind the counter kept evaluating.

“He a politician?”

“Nah,” Peter told him, “Military. Shithead was in the special forces or whatever.”

“What you paying?” Weasel asked.

Peter gave him a huge grin; he made it a little sharp at the edges.

“Well , that depends if you got a guy.”

“I got a guy,” Weasel told him.

“Fifteen,” Peter said.

“He’s better than that,” Weasel said.

“Twenty max.”

“Make it twenty-two.”

“Done. Name.”

“Deadpool.”

Peter sharpened the grin even more.

“Perfect.”

“Your name?”

“Tell ‘im it’s Murdock. Twenty-two. Corner of 11th and 54th, an hour and a half.”

“Yessir, nice doing business with you.”

Peter tipped an imaginary hat, then staggered towards the door, dragging Little Spidey with him.

 

 

“Did you just—“ Little Spidey shook off his arm furiously, “—hire a _hitman?_ ”

Peter didn’t have time for this, they need to get moving ASAP. He grabbed her arm and took her sprinting for their bags. They could talk while they ran.

“Hitman? No. Deadpool? Yes.”

Little Spidey was less good at talking while she ran.

“That’s the same thing!”

“Not with me,” he said. They hit the abandoned building and he broke off the webbing.

“Woah, I thought it had to dissolve,” Little Spidey said, catching her bag as Peter chucked it her way. He grabbed his and dug out his suit. He started yanking off his shirt. She hesitated; he noticed.

“Girl, we don’t got time for this, we gotta get a trust token from my place and then get to Hell’s Kitchen, just _change._ ”

It snapped her out of her daze and she joined him.

 

 

“You’re not very scary outside the suit,” she told him as they made their way to Queens. Peter stopped her a few blocks away from Aunt May’s place.

“Yeah, you’re not exactly a crocodile either. You stay here, I’ll be right back.”

“I can totally see you as a TA.” Peter stopped to point an angry finger at her.

He didn’t know why it was insulting. But it fucking was.

He climbed in through the window of his old bedroom and set himself to digging through the storage boxes the remnants of his shit lived in. Wade sure as fuck wouldn’t believe he was who he said he was if he showed up in the suit with Little Spidey; nor would he believe he was who he said he was if he took off the mask. He needed something recognizable. Sometime Wade or Double D had given him.

He found it. The first time he’d been the one fucked up and unconscious among their trio, Double D had taken him back to his apartment and called Miss Claire. Miss Claire was a goddamned miracle worker and Peter did not die that night, but he’d been very, very drugged and very, very scared. He’d gotten upset when Wade had left to get some more gauze or tape or whatever it had been while Claire stitched up the gaping wound on his hip and thigh. He’d started crying, but Double D hunkered down next to him and shushed him and promised him he’d be okay. He was surprisingly good at it. He’d disappeared and come back with an old Columbia sweatshirt he’d had and had carefully, gently peeled the remains of Peter’s suit off and wrapped it around him. It was soft and smelled like Double D and clutching at it had helped Peter settle down through the stitches.

Wade thought it was fucking precious when he got back and had taken a thousand photos of Peter bleeding out wearing Double D’s hoodie. He’d been pretty fucked up before he went home, so Double D let him keep the hoodie; Aunt May promised they’d give it back. They never did.

He balled up the sweater and climbed out the window, carefully closing it behind him.

He rejoined Little Spidey and shoved the sweatshirt in his bag.

“You ever been to Hell’s Kitchen?” he asked.

“Yeah, a couple times,” she said, unsure of where he was going with this.

“Aw, don’t even trip. We’re gonna have a great time.”

 

 

 


	3. matryoshka dolls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Wade, put down the gun,” he said.

Little Spidey did not like web-travel. Peter might even say that she hated it, but even that was being generous.

He was sure to point out the irony of her situation to her while she counted to ten and back and told him to get fucked.

They were a great team, he decided.

 

 

Peter’s Spidey Sense told him halfway through the final few swings to the designated rooftop that Wade was already there. He didn’t need to the Spidey Sense to tell him that he was _pissed_.

Which was part of the plan of course. Wade knew that Red would never order a hit on anyone. He wasn’t about to let someone jack his identity and twist it like that. He and Double D were protective of each other in that way.

“Hey, Little Spidey,” Peter said.

“What did you just call me?” she barked up at him against the wind.

“Little Spidey, that’s your name,” he clarified.

“My _name_ is Angel,” she snapped.

“Awwwwwwwww.”

“Shut the hell up. I don’t need this from you.”

“Awwww, okay. L’il Spidey Angel. Listen. Wade might try and kill me for a second.”

“WHAT?!”

“It’s gonna be fine, but he might do that and I need you not to freak out, okay?”

 

 

 

Peter didn’t have time to expound on this because the second he touched down on the roof and dropped Little Spidey, there was a gun pointed at both of them. Little Spidey gasped but didn’t move, as directed.

Peter put his hands up slowly. He hoped Little Spidey followed suit.

“Don’t shoot her,” he said firmly. “She’s nineteen. She’s not enhanced.”

He’d forgotten how big Wade was. He’d always kind of taken it for granted. Wade was the biggest, then came Double D, and then there was Peter. Like Matryoshka dolls.

It was kind of a trip to have that gun pointed at him because Wade was always soft and gentle around Peter; he and Double D had always been careful of the way they acted in front of him. Peter had watched them from a distance a few times and they were just. Not assholes. But oftentimes cruel and brusque with each other. Double D got meaner when Peter wasn’t there; Wade got more unhinged. They gave each other a longer leash than they did when Peter was present.

He kept his hands up.

“Wade, put down the gun,” he said.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Wade snarled. It made Peter’s heart speed up, both because he’d missed Wade’s voice and because wow, he was scary as shit.

“Put down the gun. Or if you won’t, shoot me, not the kid.”

Wade twitched his head just slightly; Peter knew he was assessing Little Spidey. He could hear her slightly stuttered breathing. Wade assessed her for a long time.

“Shoot me, not her,” Peter repeated, just in case the boxes needed a little reminder.

Wade put both guns on him. That was better.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Wade growled again.

Peter started to stand up slowly.

“Stay the fuck down,” Wade demanded. Peter went down to his knees. Put his hands on his head.

“Wade, it’s me.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s me, I can prove it. Let me prove it.”

The guns didn’t waver.

“How’d you get Murdock’s name?”

“He’s my friend.”

“Bull. Shit.”

He adjusted his fingers. Little Spidey was making tiny gasping noises. Peter stiffened his back to try to remind her to keep quiet. He wasn’t sure she could see it in the dark.

“He’s my friend,” Peter reiterated, “Double D is my friend. Matt is my friend.”

Wade went stock still. Peter breathed deeply and carefully. He was coming around.

“Let me prove it to you. I can prove it.”

There was a long moment, then Wade gestured jerkily with the gun.

“Go on.”

Peter stood slowly, telegraphing his movements.

“I need to put my hand inside my bag. This one, the black one. I don’t have anything in it but clothes and a protein bar.”

Yeah no, Wade wasn’t gonna let him do that. Plan B.

“Can you do it for me? I’ll give this to you. You can look for yourself. There’s nothing but clothes and a protein bar in it, I promise. I didn’t bring a phone. I left my keys.”

He slowly picked up the bag and held it out to Wade, not breaking eye contact. Wade held steady then dropped one gun and stepped forward to accept the bag. He squeezed it against his side, unzipped it and chucked all the stuff out of it. It was just a t-shirt, jeans, and some sneakers, so it didn’t make too much of a mess. More importantly, it wasn’t threatening. He knew the exact second Wade found the sweatshirt. He stopped digging, then looked up at Peter, then looked back into the bag. He tugged the sweatshirt out so he could see it better. He pressed it against his face to smell it. Peter glanced behind him and nodded lightly to Little Spidey so she’d know that things were going according to plan.

She gave him terrified, but steady eyes back. He was keeping her.

Wade dropped the other gun. And looked up from the sweater.

“Baby boy?” he asked, “Is that you?”

Peter smiled, and slowly put his hands down.

“Yeah. It’s me.”

“Pete?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh my god. I put a gun—I put two guns—”

“It’s okay, Wade.”

“I put—no. _No_. That is _not_ okay. Oh god, come here, you.”

Peter met him halfway. The hugs were still rib crushing, but it was a familiar rib crushing. He leaned into it. Wade pulled him back and gestured at his mask. Peter snorted.

“Don’t freak out, okay?”

“I won’t.”

Peter stared skeptically.

“I _won’t_ ,” Wade whined. That made Little Spidey relax a little bit. Good. Peter shucked the mask. Wade stared for a second and then grabbed his face with both hands.

“OH MY GOD MY BABY HAS GROWN UP,” he sobbed. He crunched Peter into a hug so tight he couldn’t breathe. Slapping at Wade’s shoulder did nothing. Fuck, this was how he was gonna die. “Went off to college. Went and grown some chin hairs. Went and got tall.”

Peter tried the slapping and wheezing again to no avail.

“I dunno what happened, Pete, but you went off to college and before I knew it there were like five new Spideys. And they’re all dumb as fucking rocks, baby boy. Dumb as fucking rocks. And they’re scared as shit of me. Which is fine, but like do it behind my back, you know?”

Peter did not know. Nor could he breathe. He tucked his head into Wade’s shoulder desperately, hoping that maybe proximity would remind him ease up. That had always worked with Double D. Serious business was done up close and personal. Teasing and rough housing from a distance. Although to be fair, Double D’s idea of ‘up close and personal’ consisted of a three to five-foot radius. No touch, touch bad.

It didn’t work.

“And then before I knew it I had five Spideys and three Reds and none of them were my Spidey or my Red.”

“Wade I’m dying,” he choked out.

That worked. Wade relinquished his hold and Peter gasped for air, blissful, blessed air. Peter took three good breaths inside and out before catching onto the important part of that statement.

“What do you mean, none of them were your Spidey or Red?”

Wade set him down. He hadn’t realized he wasn’t touching the ground. Jesus. Okay, he had to get used to that again.

“Woah, kiddo, did college do something to your head? Okay, that’s fine. Well, here’s how it is: you’re my Spidey and Red’s—”

“No, Wade, I got that,” Peter snapped. He heard Little Spidey’s nervous giggle and glared at her. She remained unintimidated. If anything it made her more comfortable. “I mean, what do you mean, none of them are your Red? Double D’s around here, it’s Hell’s Kitchen. Unless—”

He put a hand on Wade’s huge arm.

“Wade, Double D’s not—he’s not dead is he?”

Wade raised an eyebrow then dropped both. Oh no. No. no. nonono.

“He’s not dead,” Peter stated more than asked, “Wade, please.”

“Kiddo, you haven’t heard?”

His heart was fucking breaking. No. Not Matt. He was so good. He was working so hard.

“He moved to San Francisco, honey.”

 

 

“WHAT THE FUCK,” Peter snarled, pacing back and forth across the rooftop. “What. The FUCK. What the fuck.”

Little Spidey was having the time of her life watching him. She’d warmed up pretty quick to Wade and Wade was delighted that she was delighted.

“What the _fuck,_ ” Peter carried on.

“It is so weird to hear to you say ‘fuck,’” Wade noted, then to Little Spidey, “He ran off to college at seventeen and a half and we didn’t work the same shifts anymore.”

“What the FUCK,” Peter emphasized.

“Then I heard he went off to grad school and you know, for idiots like me, that’s basically Narnia.”

Little Spidey nodded along enthusiastically. Peter should have intervened in that budding friendship, but he was busy having a meltdown.

“He just _left?_ Matt? Our Matt? Double D-Matt? Just left? Hell’s Kitchen? Is he possessed? Is he sick? Is he dying? What the fuck?”

Wade was complimenting Little Spidey’s spandex and assuring her that she was probably only half as dumb as the other Spideys.

“WADE,” Peter snapped, “Questions. Answers. Answer the questions.”

“Oh right,” Wade said, returning his attention back to Peter, “Yeah he left.”

“ _When?_ ”

“About a year ago.”

What.

“Is he dying?”

“Huh? Oh no, Red’s not dying.”

“Then why the _fuck_ would—”

“Nelson was, though.”

Peter stopped dead. He hadn’t thought that there could possibly be anything worse, but yet again, he was proven wrong. No, not Foggy. Foggy was such a good fit for Matt and so kind, genuinely kind and helpful. He didn’t deserve to die. What would Matt do without Foggy. Oh god. He was getting teary.

“Oh my god,” he wavered. This set off the switch in Wade’s head that made him unbearably kind.

“Woah, woah, woah, kiddo, take it easy,” he said, popping up and taking Peter’s elbows, “You’re gonna put yourself into a panic attack. Breathe. Breathe with me.”

Peter tried to. In 1. In 1. In 1.

“Pete, you are having a panic attack, let’s sit.”

Yeah that sounded about right, he’d been waiting for one.

“Baby boy, you’re not listening. Listen to me, let’s sit down.”

Matt couldn’t live without Foggy, he’d tear himself to pieces. Foggy was like 90% of Matt’s impulse control. Matt was emotionally volatile on a good day.

“Peter. Sit down.”

He followed the instructions subconsciously. He looked up and found himself a snotty, teary disaster.

“Wade, Foggy can’t die, I can’t—Foggy can’t die—” Wade tucked him close and smoothed a hand over his hair.

“You’re not listening, kid, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Nelson ain’t dead.”

Wait, what?

“What?” He choked into Wade’s shoulder, “He’s not?”

“No, he’s fine. Well, fine in a relative sense of the word.”

Peter shoved himself back to look Wade in the eye.

“He’s not dead.”

“Nope.

“Sick? Dying?”

“I mean, for a minute there, but that’s kind of how cancer works, I should know.”

This was not soothing Peter’s heart.

“He has _cancer_?”

Wade snorted.

“He _had_ cancer,” he corrected. “And trust me, Red was a fucking disaster. Like, take his normal disaster levels and multiple it by a bazillion.” Peter stared up at him.

“And?”

“And what?”

“And what happened?”

“Oh, Red stopped eating and did that thing he does where he works every job until he physically collapses, only he added taking care of Nelson to that and had a nervous breakdown.”

Peter gaped a little.

“Wade, I’m not seeing how this is ‘fine.’”

“That’s ‘cause I’m not done, jeez. So needy. _Anyways_ , Red had his nervous breakdown and got his priorities straightened out and gave up being Double D for a while until Nelson got out of chemo, which, kudos to that guy, Pete. He took it like a champ. They were stupid cute about it too, Red shaved his head and everything—”

“That is adorable, but I need more timeline and less detail,” Peter told him. Little Spidey was looking a little sleepy, although absolutely enraptured by all this superhero drama she was now privy to. He needed to get her home soon, and not just because their mutual respect was in the balance.

“Yes, right. So Nelson got chemo and that bitch whatever-her-name-is—the DA—was giving Red all kinds of shit like, in and out of the suit. She kept scaring his clients and wooing others and then she put out a reward on his head for capture. Red, obvs, couldn’t deal with that while he was taking care of Nelson, so he just said fuck it, my boo’s more important, let’s move to San Francisco. And Nelson was apparently down for that, so as soon as he was mostly mobile, they packed up their cookies and left.”

Peter needed time to process this.

“He left Hell’s Kitchen.”

“Yep.”

“For San Francisco.”

“Yep.”

“For Foggy.”

“I know, precious, right? They are made for each other.”

“That is the most romantic thing I’ve heard in my life, but also really throwing a wrench in my plans here.”

“Oh? What plan?” Wade leaned forward and waggled his toes.

“You know about the increasing crime rates?”

“No, I live under a rock.”

“They’re getting worse. I’m getting my ass beat over here and I’m commuting from fucking Ithaca every week.”

“You TA at Cornell?” Little Spidey interjected. God. See? This is why he needed to get her home soon.

“No, I am an enigma wrapped in a mystery,” Peter told her, then to Wade he said, “This isn’t a one-man job, and the new guys aren’t coordinated enough to get anything done. We need a team of people who know what they’re doing.”

“And this is exactly Red’s thing,” Wade finished for him. Peter waved his hands to say ‘exactly.’ “Huh, well that’s a problem, Pete. From what I gather, he’d pretty damn happy with San Francisco; not sure what Hell’s Kitchen has to offer them after all the shit they’ve been through.”

Peter groaned and scrubbed his hands through his hair.

“Why don’t you get rid of the crazy DA?” Little Spidey suggested. Peter groaned and scrubbed harder.

“It’s not that easy,” he said. “We’d have to get her fired.”

“Or killed?” Wade suggested unhelpfully. Peter gave him a scathing look.

“We are _not_ going to kill the DA.”

Wade grumbled and pouted.

“Okay, then we get her fired,” Little Spidey decided. How could Peter argue with that logic?

“Okay, we get her fired, and then what? Call Double D up and tell him to come back to Hell’s Kitchen?”

“Yeah, basically,” Little Spidey said. “That’s only like two steps.”

Peter wanted to cry and kiss her precious little noggin and throttle her with how naïve that was.

“Or,” Wade offered, “You can see if she hasn’t already been fired, and if not, put Page on the scent.”

Peter gaped at him.

“Wade, you’re so smart,” he said.

“Duh, I’m a fucking assassin,” he held up a hand to Little Spidey and she high-fived it.

 

 


	4. improvise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Will Daredevil actually come?” Little Spidey asked him as they headed back to Queens. He sighed.  
> “I really hope so,” he told her honestly.  
> “What happens if he says no?” she asked.  
> That, Peter could answer.  
> “He won’t say no. He might not come, but he won’t say no.”

Peter desperately wanted to investigate the whole DA situation that night, but he couldn’t because he had to drag Little Spidey back to the Bronx and then go catch a ride back to school.

He’d never been more frustrated in his life.

Correction.

He’d seldom been more frustrated in his life.

The upside was that he now, once again, had Wade’s number.

The downside was that Wade was stupid busy; he made Peter’s schedule look like peanuts.

The thing about rising crime rates is that someone is always looking for an assassin or a protector. Security firms were shelling out the big money to get Wade to look after hot shot politicians. Wade had no less than five jobs booked every night of the week, although he definitely dropped one to free up an hour to teach Little Spidey how to punch a guy like an assassin, which? Was that supposed to be comforting? Should he separate those two?

“Peter, is it supposed to be doing that?” One of his students asked him. He looked up to see the industrial-strength magnets he’d collected for this lab trying to crack through the glass between them to be reunited. The glass splintered.

Fuck his life. He was going to have to replace that.

“Yeah, no. That’s totally fine,” he lied. Everyone stopped what they were doing because he was the second worst liar in the world. (See Double D for the reigning champion; oh wait. You couldn’t because the asshole was in _San Francisco_ ). Then he inconspicuously chased everyone to the corner of the lab, donned a glove, and smashed the glass so that it wouldn’t splinter and stab someone in the eye in its explosion.

His students cheered.

He needed a drink.

 

 

Peter was drooling happily and attractively when someone touched his shoulder and snapped him awake on the bus to NYC.

“Peter?” a familiar voice asked. Oh, fuck him. It was one of the kids from lab. He couldn’t escape them.

“Mm yeah? Hi.” he blearily mumbled, sitting up and trying to get his bearings. There were five of them, all girls, staring over the seats around him. They were giggling. He probably looked like a mess. The lab reports in his lap were a mess.

“The next stop is the city,” the first student told him. He shook himself and collected the papers and crammed them in his bag; he then crammed his bag more comfortably against the window, so he could put his head against it.

“Got it, thanks.”

The Spidey Sense told him that the girls were still watching him. He cracked open an eye.

“You need something or…?”

They giggled. He hadn’t even done anything.

“Do you go home every weekend?” the first girl asked; Peter wondered how she’d been elected spokesperson.

“Not willingly,” he assured them.

“Hey Peter, have you ever seen Spiderman?” one of the other girls asked. He tried not to let the question startle him.

“Yeah, a few times, I feel like everyone in the city has by this point.”

“We were just saying how you look exactly like him.”

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

He’d come straight from the gym. He normally wore bulkier clothes in lab because it was literally in the basement of the building and he got cold easily.

“Nah.”

“You totally do.”

“Naaaaah.”

“Like, you’ve even got thunder thighs like he does.”

Peter snapped up straight to glare at her.

“They aren’t that big,” he defended. He angled his not-thunder thighs towards the walls of the bus. This sent all the girls into fresh giggles.

“Don’t you have homework?” he snapped, “Didn’t I give you homework?”

 

 

Peter got stuck behind the girls on the subway, too because _of course_ they were all headed to Queens.

“How long have you lived in Queens?” one of them chirped.

“Please let me die in peace.”

“Are you in the city for the festival?”

“I would literally rather stab myself.”

“How much longer are you at Cornell?”

“Three months too many.”

“Wait, you’re graduating?” He glanced over to see all five of them looking at him with deep concern etched into their faces. Maybe he’d been a little too grumpy with them. He gave them a little smile and a shrug.

“Yeah, graduating 2.0. I’ve been offered a position in the lab, but I’m not sure if I’m gonna take it yet.”

“Take it!” the girls said over each other. Peter laughed.

“Why, so you all can marvel at my thunder thighs for yet another year?”

“No, because you’re a good teacher,” one of them said seriously.

Aw.

He was gonna store that memory next to the self-loathing.

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

“Hey Peter,” one of the girls who had been quiet for most of the ride said. He looked back at her and raised an eyebrow in acknowledgement. “Your bag is, uh, open.”

He swung it around and saw that it was just unzipped. That was fine. What was very much not fine was the sleeve of the suit which was hanging out of it. You could 100% see the webbing. He made careful eye-contact with the group and slowly tucked it away.

“I’ve gotta go,” he said, and gunned it out of the station.

 

 

“Fuck me,” he groaned.

“I mean, that’s kind of weird for me since I’ve known you since you were a little baby—”

“Just shoot me in the head, Wade, I’m ready for it.”

“Wow, kiddo, the last ten years have really molded you into a mini-Red, you know that? All that drama in such a compact body.”

“I cannot go back to Cornell. Ever. Ever ever ever. I’m never gonna graduate.”

“I mean, seriously, we should call him, he would be so proud.”

“Is he always like this?” Little Spidey asked Wade as they camped out on the roof right across from the DA’s office.

“No, he learned these bad habits from Daredevil,” Wade told her, “Don’t worry, I won’t let that happen to you.”

Peter had called the DA’s office and gotten mixed messages about who was who. Online wasn’t much better. There were pictures of the former DA as well as one of a person whose title was Interim DA. Apparently, the office was in the middle of a shake-up which was good for Peter’s plan, but bad for the borough. It was hard to prosecute when your system was hanging on by a thread.

He told Wade this, and Wade said that the way to know for sure was to see who sat in the chair in the office. So here they were; stalking and waiting for the members of the late-night meeting in the office to _sit down already_. Little Spidey had brought binoculars like a champ, so she was in charge of narrating the sequence of events.

“The lady with the brown hair just sat down,” she announced.

“Which one?” Peter asked, squinting and trying to enhance the image offered by the suit.

“The one with tan skin, not the white lady,” she clarified.

Peter turned to Wade.

“Was it the white lady Double D was waging war with?” he asked.

“Yep, that’s the one,” Wade confirmed.

Peter deflated and laid back against the roof’s concrete. Finally, _finally_ something had gone to plan.

“Let’s check with Ms. Page just to be sure,” he said, relieved. He and Little Spidey still had some perps to take care of before they called it a night.

 

 

Karen whacked Peter with a clipboard when he opened her window and he thought that was justified even though Little Spidey did not. She didn’t know Karen.

Once Karen decided he was who he said he was, she was even a little apologetic, and still just as beautiful and badass as the day they’d met. Besides the fine laugh lines, she’d gotten some darker blonde highlights mixed into her hair.

“You scared the shit out of me,” she accused him. He apologized. “Who’s this?” she asked, gesturing at Little Spidey with the clipboard.

“My accomplice,” he told her.

“I’m Spiderman,” Little Spidey argued. Karen considered her skeptically, then shook her head. She herded them into her kitchen and asked Peter if he wanted a drink. Another trip. He could remember a time he’d come flying to grab Matt for back-up but had stumbled upon Karen and Foggy and Matt in his apartment, shitfaced and laugh-crying for half an hour over one of their stupid dad jokes. He’d decided then and there that he would never drink with their boring asses.

He politely declined. Karen popped open a beer for herself and offered Little Spidey a can of 7-Up; she followed Peter’s example and declined. Karen gave it to her anyways.

“So, is this about Matt?” Karen asked.

“Kind of,” Peter told her. He explained the plan. She took a sip of beer when he was done while she thought.

“Yeah, no, that gal barely lasted six months,” she confirmed in reference to the DA, “I told them, but they’d just gotten settled over in SF and Matt didn’t want to move Fogs back to the city yet.”

“So he was thinking about coming back?” Peter asked hopefully. Karen hummed.

“Well I think originally, they thought they’d come back, but Matt and Fogs just passed the bar over there and set up a practice, which, as I understand it, is doing pretty well.”

Goddamnit, Matthew. Come on. Daredevil doesn’t do happy families.

“Hasn’t he been watching the news? Doesn’t he feel something, anything about Hell’s Kitchen? Pain? Guilt? A misplaced sense of responsibility?”

Karen laughed and set down her beer.

“Peter, has anyone told you you’re starting to sound like him?”

“No. Maybe, Wade. Anyways. Do you think they’d make a trip back home for a minute? For the short-term?”

Karen drummed her fingers against the table. She looked at Little Spidey who’d hitched up her mask enough to sip at the 7-Up. Peter took the opening.

“Isn’t he pissed off about the copycats? I mean, they’re doing a shit job, honestly.”

Little Spidey slapped him with a look of betrayal.

“There are three, count ‘em, three Daredevil lookalikes and all they’re doing is beating the shit out of people. One of them killed a guy, did you hear about that?”

Karen’s smile dropped off her face and her shoulders went rigid.

“I thought that was a rumor.”

Peter kept going.

“Hell’s Kitchen is on the down and out, I mean, people are giving up hope. We were there the other night; Santiago’s closed shop and some gentrifying monster company has bought two apartment buildings. They kicked everyone to the curb. There were eviction notices all over the place. People are fucking scared, Karen. How many guys did we take in from the Kitchen the other night?” he asked Little Spidey. He knew, but he wanted Karen to hear her say it.

“Uh, like nine? Ten? I don’t remember, I lost count after the guy with the tire iron.”

Peter gestured widely. Karen’s lips thinned.

“I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know it was that bad,” she said, “We’ve been chasing the reports in Brooklyn.”

Peter went for home.

“So it’s just like before,” he said, “Just like before Matt stepped in—before someone stepped in who gave a shit about the place. Now that he’s gone, Hell’s Kitchen’s right back where it started; no news, no press, no lawyers, nothing but dickheads with guns and corrupt politicians.”

“Fuck,” Karen hissed. She dropped her head into her hands and pushed at the sides of her neck. “Fuck.”

“Ms. Page,” Peter pleaded, “I’m not asking him to come back and stay, but we need help. I want to make this right, make this better. But I’m only one guy and the Avengers are too high profile to do it. We can’t dig out the organizers of this shit show with the Avengers, they’ll see us coming a mile away. I can’t do it, either, I don’t know the crime circles. Wade doesn’t know the structures.”

He pulled off the mask and stared her dead in the eye.

“I need help. I need Daredevil, the real deal,” he put a little of fifteen-year-old Peter in his voice, “Will you help me?”

“Of course,” Karen sighed.

 

 

“Will Daredevil actually come?” Little Spidey asked him as they headed back to Queens. He sighed.

“I really hope so,” he told her honestly.

“What happens if he says no?” she asked.

That, Peter could answer.

“He won’t say no. He might not come, but he won’t say no.”

Little Spidey kept her head his way while they ran. She was getting so much better at keeping up with him lately. She didn’t say anything, which Peter took to mean that she was trusting him.

 

 

Peter got a text the next day.

 **KP:** Call me. It’s complicated.

 

 

“Did he say no?” Little Spidey asked over dinner. She noticed that Peter wasn’t scarfing as usual, more like sitting and communing with the little spirit inside his burger. He put it down and held his head.

“Fuck,” he hissed.

“Why?” Little Spider pressed.

Foggy had had some complications out West which required a boatload of tests. He was justifiably upset. He’d told Matt to go, but Matt would be damned before he did.

Peter got it; he totally got it. After all the shit they’d been through, Matt had finally figured out who and what came first in his life, and he wasn’t going to budge. He’d told Karen that if hell was still reigning when Foggy’s tests came back, he’d try to get out to New York, but they were in the middle of the appointments, so it would be another week if not two or three until they got the first ones back.

Foggy had sent Peter a text out of the blue, and all it said was ‘I’m so sorry.’

It smashed Peter’s heart. Foggy didn’t have to be sorry for maybe having cancer. Again.

“It’s fine, we don’t need him,” Little Spidey told him, it was probably meant to be comforting.

It wasn’t.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d been depending on Double D. Fuck. Shit. Damn. Okay. It’s okay. Regroup.

“We can do this,” he said, more to himself than Little Spidey.

“Yeah, we can,” she chirped.

 

 

Peter took a bat to the head extra hard that night, right before he had to return to campus. Little Spidey dropped the guy, but only after he’d taken a couple blows in the stomach and ribs. Aunt May didn’t want to him to go back in the morning. Mr. Stark didn’t want him to go back in the morning. Wade told him it probably wouldn’t kill him, so he went with the opinion which aligned most with his own.

Little Spidey asked if he needed help getting onto the bus and he waved her off, only slurring a little. She came running back and dragged him over to the right bus when he was halfway up the stairs of the one adjacent.

It was a problem.

He needed to think.

They needed a fourth man; Wade was too busy to spend as much time as they needed chasing petty crime. Hell, Wade was part of the problem, but Peter had to ignore that for the greater good at the moment.

Fuck, he needed to think.

 

 

Peter slept through most of Monday and didn’t see anyone until he turned up for lab for Tuesday and the silence that met him from his normally chatty students told him he probably just should have stayed in bed.

“What, ya’ll never seen a guy mugged before?” he growled, then dropped his box of glass beakers on the counter.

“Peter, I’ve got this,” Chanda said, horrified.

“S’alright, the concussion’s mostly gone,” he told her.

This caused a flurry of whispering.

“Peter. I’ve got this. Go home and sleep.”

He laughed. That’s not how concussions work, my dear. He tossed up his hands and said, “I’ll be next door if you need me.” He could think in the lab.

“How about in the lounge?” Chanda needled; aw, she was such a good friend. Not happening, though. The lounge was for sleeping; he needed to think.

“Next door.”

“On the couch?”

“On the floor.”

He gave Chanda finger guns as he bumped back through the entrance and he heard one student say ‘Oh my god, is he _okay?_ ’ before the door closed.

Oh, honey, no. Not even a little.

 

 

He managed not to die between lab and seminar and then he managed not to die between seminar and seminar and then he managed to only lose his temper a little bit when the journal staff told him that the website’s update wasn’t working.

He hunted down and scolded his assistant mods.

The update went up and he collapsed on his bed. The black eyes were gone finally, he needed to eat more to bump the healing factor back up where it needed to be. But he couldn’t do that because his stomach revolted every time he sat down.

What the fuck was he supposed to do?

He went through the list of low-profile supers in his head over and over trying to find someone who could help. Danny Rand might do it, if he wasn’t chasing the Hand. Jessica Jones would tell him to fuck off. Misty Knight might help, but not on a regular basis. Hawkeye would tell him to fuck off. The other Hawkeye would tell him to fuck off. Sergeant Barnes would tell him to fuck off. Each of the X-men would tell him to fuck off.

He sat up in bed.

Well, it was worth a shot.

 

 

Frank Castle told him to fuck off in no uncertain terms. He did, however, relent a little and say that if he saw something fishy going on he’d take care of it. Peter begged him not to take care of it permanently. He said he’d make no promises.

Peter was right back where he’d started.

 

 

He was slamming his head into the counter over and over to the enormous concern of everyone else trying to use the lab when it hit him like a fucking grenade.

 

 

He called Shuri on his way home.

“You’re a moron,” she told him. He agreed.

“An idiot.” He agreed.

“Why’s this your problem anyways?”

“I have a misplaced sense of responsibility and have been asked to intervene by a higher power.”

“The Avengers told you to.” See? This is why he should have called Shuri to begin with.

“Got it in one.”

“Use what you already have, dumbass. You’ve got what, five Spidermans and three Daredevils?”

“Well, I have three Spidermans because I’ve already got one and the other tried to kill me, but I see your point.”

“I’m busy.”

“Thank you, your highness.”

“Send me payment in memes, you’re boring lately.”

“Will do, princess.”

 

 

He rushed through lab and then class and cut his sobbing hours over his thesis from five to two and caught the first bus back to the city.

He leaned his head against the window and sighed.

“Hi Peter!”

He nearly leapt through the roof.

There they were, all five of the girls from before.

“You literally have exams today, I know you do,” he snipped. How did they find him? How was this happening?

“No, that was Wednesday,” one of the girls corrected. It took him a second to remember that it was Friday and he groaned and shoved himself as far into his corner as he could.

“So, what was that thing last week all about?” One of the other girls prodded. “Are you a cosplayer? Is that why your thighs are so big?”

Fuck everyone on this bus.

 

 

The girls followed him to Queens (because of course they did) and wanted to see his suit. He finally snapped.

“You know all those crazy people pretending to be Spiderman?” They all lit up; everyone had their favorite lookalike.

“You’re one of them?” they bubbled.

“Yeah, I’m one of them.”

“Oh my god, that’s so cool! Is that why you got mugged?”

“More like someone tried to kick my head in, but yeah.”

The girls were beside themselves in their excitement.

“Are you going to fight people now?”

“That’s the plan,” Peter told them honestly.

“Okay, but be careful! We’ll look for you in the news!”

What kind of world did he live in?

 

 

Little Spidey was instrumental in finding the other Spideys and one of the Daredevils. They had a goddamned forum.

“This is Louis,” she introduced. Peter looked up at the guy and then back at her and then back up the guy.

“Louis, this is Spiderman, the real one,” she continued. Louis was at least two heads taller than her and one taller than Peter. His suit wasn’t spandex, Peter didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t as shiny as Little Spidey’s.

“Hi Louis,” he said, holding out a hand. Louis took it and shook it enthusiastically.

“Man, I love your work,” he said.

 

 

Louis wasn’t as good a fighter as Little Spidey and Peter called time out and to stop and show him how to aim his fists better. He taught him how to rock his weight to get better impact. Then he had Little Spidey teach him how to land a kick, and then they were back off again.

The press lost its mind at the sight of three Spideys hurtling through New York City. Peter taught the other two how to move fluidly and how to land from a height to ensure that they all moved like Spiderman. It was weird. Like directing an actor to play yourself in your own biography.

Louis was big enough to discourage perps before fists went flying. Peter told him that he’d be the first line of defense.

“You can always have your legs broken for another inch or so,” Little Spidey told Peter after Louis had terrified the shit out of a group of hormone-fueled teenagers.

“If you think I’m the one who needs this most between the two of us, you have another thing coming,” he shot back. Louis thought they were hilarious.

Peter made him promise to join them again the following weekend.

 

 

The copycat Daredevil thought he was god’s gift to humanity and both Louis and Little Spidey had to drag Peter aside at one point before he broke the fucker’s jaw.

“Yeah, he’s kind of a dick,” Little Spidey said to the side.

“He’s a disgrace to Double D’s name,” Peter spat.

Louis was excited that Peter knew Daredevil well enough to having this information.

“Is the real Daredevil nicer?” he asked. Peter’s jawed worked for a second, but Little Spidey got there first.

“The real deal said he couldn’t join up ‘cause his boyfriend might have cancer.” Louis melted.

“Oh my god, my heart.”

“Yeah, he might join us later though, if his boo’s tests come back clean,” she said. Peter wanted to hug her and strangle her at the same time for giving out Double D’s information like that.

“Excuse me, I’m still here?” said the shithead behind them. “I came all this way and you all are being extremely rude.”

Peter stormed back over to him.

“Fight me,” he said, “Show me what you’ve got.”

“Why should I?” asked the douche.

“Because I’m making a team, and I need a Daredevil, and I’ve gotta figure out if you’re even worth the effort,” Peter said. The guy grimaced at him. It was a cheap imitation of Double D’s snarl, but Peter gave him partial credit for doing his homework.

“I mean, that’s cute and all, but can you fight or are you just really into fetish gear?”

He caught the fist coming towards his head and twisted it away.

“Or do you just really like to be angry? Is this some kind of outlet for you?” He caught the next fist and the one after that. Ehn. They weren’t great. He was pulling his punches. “Oh I see, you’re just really into latex.”

He shoved the guy’s attempt at a roundhouse kick aside and sent him stumbling into a half spin.

“C’mon, fight me,” he goaded. He caught the right hook. “Fight me. Fight. Me.”

The guy was panting when he was done, and he hadn’t laid even one on Peter. A drunk guy with a baseball bat had landed one on Peter the other day, this was just sad. He snorted.

“I’m gonna pass on this one,” he sang to Louis and Little Spidey, “The _real_ Daredevil wouldn’t even give me an inch. This guy’s giving me a mile and a half. C’mon, let’s go.”

They followed him as he started off across the basketball court they’d landed at.

He felt the guy coming at him from a mile away and swung around to catch his last-ditch effort. He picked him up and threw him into the wall nearby. He was visibly shocked. Peter walked over and stood over him.

“Take off the mask and go take some judo lessons,” he spat. “You’re insulting my friend.”

 

 

“Dude, that was amazing,” Louis told him in awe when they’d all reached the perch. Peter had made some extra web and he was going to see if they had a knack for the swinging before he made them the slinging tech. He hadn’t told them he’d done this.

They were going to freak the fuck out.

“Yeah, well. We still need a Daredevil, you know of any others?” Peter asked, watching the city and letting the other two catch their breath.

Little Spidey refused to join him on the edge, but he heard her squirming around as she thought about it.

“There’s one guy, but—” she trailed off.

“The one that--?” Louis asked.

“We don’t want him,” Peter said. He wasn’t adding a murderer to their group; they had Wade for that. Fuck, he was going to have to introduce Louis to Wade. It would probably be fine. Hopefully. “Who’s the last guy? Anyone know?”

They did not.

“Alright, well, looks like we’ll have to go hunting.”

This got both the others excited. Peter turned around on the edge.

“But first, we’re gonna do something fun,” he said. He took off his web slinger. Little Spidey caught on first.

“Oh god, no.” she squeaked.

“Oh god, _yes_ ,” Louis breathed.

It went exactly as expected.

Louis was a natural. Little Spidey only cried a little bit. Peter told her he was proud of her and she punched him in the solar plexus hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.

 

 

The other other Daredevil was a grumpy guy who thought he was the shit. Peter wondered what it was about the red suit that attracted assholes to it. Double D had always maintained more of a streetfighter reputation than an asshole one. Even though, without a doubt, if you knew him you knew Double D was an asshole.

“I don’t do teams,” the Daredevil said in a low gravelly voice.

Peter actually laughed out loud because once again, it was like these guys had found a cartoon of Double D and picked out a set of key catch phrases. This guy, though, he actually thought he was fooling people into thinking he was the original Daredevil.

“Sure, okay,” he said, “So that wasn’t you Jessica Jones was working with a few summer’s back?”

The guy was confused. Louis and Little Spidey exchanged looks.

“No, no, you’re right. You have nothing to do with The Defenders,” Peter clarified.

“The hell are you talking about?” the guy rumbled.

“Ah, right. You and the Punisher, nothing there at all,” Peter said. “No involvement with Deadpool, either. No contact work with Hawkeye. Absolutely fuck all to do with any of the Avengers, and sure as hell nothing with the X-men.”

The guy caught on faster than the other bastard. He knew Peter wasn’t falling for his act.

“Look, that guy is gone,” he said, “He abandoned this city.”

“Oh please,” Peter goaded, “The real Double D would rather eat his own teeth than leave Hell’s Kitchen. Hell’s Kitchen abandoned _him_.”

The Daredevil did a really good impression of Double D’s grimace. He drew himself to his full height and bared his teeth at Peter. Wow, was that what righteous fury looked like in person? He’d only ever seen it on Mr. Stark and Rogers-Cap; they wore it much better.

“Hell’s Kitchen would never abandon—”

“Yeah, it would,” Peter interrupted.

“No it—”

“Totally would.”

Aw, he’d forgotten how much fun it was to go this route. Little Spidey and Louis were definitely concerned for his mental well-being.

“You piece of shit. You got a problem with—” The guy was turning purple under his mask. He was forgetting to gravel.

“Now that you mention it, I _do_ have a problem. Like six, actually. Your suit to begin with.”

“You wanna fucking die, punk?”

“Hell yeah, fucking kill me.”

The guy leapt at him, but Peter was faster. He dodged the incoming punches and made sure to yawn in the middle of them. The Daredevil was hulking out, it was great. He wasn’t pulling his punches, that was good. Peter threw him a bone and caught one fist to twist it back. Then he let one collide with his side to give the guy hope. It worked like a charm. He laid into Peter with single-minded devotion. Or at least he tried to, once he realized that he wasn’t making contact anymore, he looked up in fury at where Peter was perched on top of the chain-link fence.

“I mean, you’re _okay_ ,” Peter drawled, “But not quite Double D material. Like, you aren’t the worst copycat we’ve seen tonight.” He swayed rhythmically, “You should be proud of that, really.”

The Daredevil leapt up the fence to catch him, but Peter hopped up onto the adjacent building.

“What, you Spiderman or something?” the guy spat, “You think you’re better than the rest of us?”

Peter hummed and stepped over to the edge of the building. He dropped into a crouch and stared into the guy’s face.

“Yeah, actually, I am Spiderman,” he said, “The one, the only, the original. And yeah, I do think I’m better than you. And that’s because I am. Because Double D taught me to be.”

The guy went slack, taken aback.

“He trained you.”

“He trained me.”

“No, you’re lying.”

“I was a kid, and he trained me,” Peter told him. “He refused to be on a team with me unless he knew I would have his back. He taught me how to punch and how to fight and Deadpool taught me the rest. No one else was doing it, so Double D stepped up. That’s kind of his thing.”

The guy loosened his grip. He climbed down from the fence.

“He saved me,” he admitted. “The real guy. He saved me. Saved my daughter. Then he just fucked off when things got hard, it didn’t make sense. It _doesn’t_ make sense. Things are still shit here, they’re even worse than before and nobody is doing anything about it.”

Peter dropped down next to him.

“Double D might come back,” he said, “He’s my friend, my personal friend. He’s going through some shit, it has nothing to do with Hell’s Kitchen. His family is in danger. You get that, right?”

The Daredevil nodded. He sighed and kept nodding.

“What goes around comes around, huh?”

Oh, he was gonna fit in nicely.

“Can you help us until he gets back? We’re trying to help this city.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.”

 

 

“Are you sure you’re a TA?” Little Spidey asked as they made their way home. Peter’s chest felt lighter than it had since this whole mess had started.

“What?” Peter asked.

“Dude, you’re a TA?” Louis interjected. Peter glared at him, then glared at Little Spidey for opening her mouth.

“I am damn sure I’m a TA,” he grumbled.  “Why? Finally admitting to my coolness?”

“You talk like my counselor.”

 

 

 

 

 


	5. like a moth to a flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t like this guy,” Wade announced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright ya'll this is what I've got so far. I'll probably update in bursts like this, since that's kind of how I work.

“I don’t like this guy,” Wade announced, gesturing to the Daredevil.

“Wade, be nice,” Peter scolded. It had been a month since he’d picked up his new teammates. Louis was so good with web, it was scary. Little Spidey had not improved one bit. Not even after Peter let her watch Wade fail at it spectacularly. Wade was just too bulky for the web to work for him.

“He won’t fight me,” Wade complained.

The new Daredevil couldn’t seem to decide whether he was angry or confused about this. He was, on the whole, a good guy. A kickboxing instructor, as a matter of fact. His daughter was just turning twelve. He was obviously restraining himself from whipping out pictures of her constantly. He didn’t want to give out his name so Wade had taken to calling him Dave and various other vaguely unkind epithets.

“No one wants to fight you, Wade,” Peter sighed.

“Red would fight me,” Wade argued.

“He look like Red?” Peter snapped. “No. No, he does not. You have info for us or not?”

Wade grumbled and pouted and hid from Peter’s bitchiness behind Little Spidey.

They’d done a lot of work. The rates were dropping all over. They’d found two of the major organizations. Peter and Wade had threatened the top brass of one and Wade had apprehended and intimidated one of the snipers for the other. It wasn’t much, but it was headway. Neither of them were big on tracking organizations, they were more used to handling cronies and associates on an individual and group level. They didn’t usually go straight for the head.

And with good reason. Those guys were tough to find.

Wade walked Little Spidey forward in the form of a hug, using her as a human shield.

“I’ve got it, but you ain’t gonna like it,” he said.

“Lay it on me,” Peter said.

“It’s Fisk,” he announced.

“Jesus FUCKING Christ,” Peter swore. He spun in a circle and started to pace furiously. “Are you FUCKING serious. Is he incapable of just staying fucking dead?”

“Fisk, like Wilson Fisk?” The Daredevil clarified.

“The one and only, Not-Red,” Wade told him cheerfully. Peter stopped to thump his head against the side of the concrete storage locker on the rooftop they’d claimed as their base.

“Okay, what does that mean?” The Daredevil asked in Peter’s direction.

“That means,” Wade sang in his place, “That we need Red, the actual article.”

“Fuck this, I’m texting him,” Peter declared.

“Oh no, lemme do it!” Wade stole the phone of out his hands and had dialed before Peter could even finish putting in his passcode.

“ _Wade_ ,” he snapped, grabbing for the phone. Wade held it out of reach. “ _Wade Wilson,”_ he growled, leaping for it; Wade jerked it the other way.

“Oooooh, we’re using full names,” Wade sang. The phone kept ringing “I can do that, too, Peter—”

“Hello?” Matt answered. Both of them froze, it had been so long since they’d heard his voice.

“Hello?” Matt repeated. Wade collected himself first.

“RED, HONEY I’VE MISSED YOU,” he cried.

The rest of the team were shell-shocked that _the_ Daredevil had just answered the phone like a normal human being.

“I’m hanging up,” Matt said.

“No, no, wait!” Peter cried; he snatched the phone from Wade. “Wait, Double D, it’s me.”

“I’m still hanging up.”

“Matt, wait! It’s just—I—”

There was a rustle on the other side which was definitely Matt trying to find the end call button.

“IT’S FISK,” Peter shouted.

Silence.

“The hell did you just say,” Matt growled.

“Wilson Fisk is coordinating some big shit over here in the city,” Wade explained lightly.

“THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY,” Matt roared into the phone. A softer voice suddenly muddled his speaking in the background.

“Matthew, what the hell are you shouting about—” Peter’s heart squeezed. Foggy.

“That _motherfucker_ is—”

“Which motherfucker—”

“Fisk. FISK. _That_ colossal motherfucking piece of—”

“Woah, woah, settle down. What’s going on? Use your words pal.”

There was a frustrated snarl. Foggy took the phone.

“Hello?”

“Heya, Nelson!” Wade cheerfully greeted.

“Oh. Hi, Wade.”

“How’s cancer?” Peter smacked Wade’s shoulder. The other three winced.

“I will tell you in two days. What have you done to my life partner in the five minutes I left him alone?”

Peter had missed Foggy’s voice of reason so much.

“Just told him that Wilson Fisk is coordinating a swath of criminal activity in Manhattan,” Wade chirped.

There was silence.

“Oh, no. Of course he is. Because why the hell not?”

“—going to New York—” Matt’s voice quipped softly in the background. Foggy put a hand on the phone, but they could still hear him when he said,

“No, you aren’t. Sit down.”

“But—”

“Down. Sit. It’s midnight on a Saturday, you catching a flight, right now? No? That’s what I thought. Park it, we’ll deal with it.”

“But—”

“I’m not going to fucking ask again.”

God. Foggy was goals. Foggy uncovered the phone.

“Alright, so what is your current plan to deal with this nightmare?”

 

 

Matt and Foggy flew into New York the following weekend. Peter was exhausted from editing his thesis, but he caught the earlier bus to the city that Friday.

He barely even recognized Matt when he saw him. Foggy was thin and tired looking, chatting amiably to Karen while Matt visibly vibrated out of his skin. Peter didn’t hold back, he swamped Foggy first.

Foggy laughed into his neck and patted at his shoulders.

“Pete, you’re so big,” he noted, “Look at the legs on you.”

Peter pulled back to grin at him.

“I’ve missed you so much, Fogs.” Foggy laughed.

“How’s grad school?” he asked.

“It’s fucking awful.”

“Yeah, it’s like that, isn’t it Matty?”

Matt was so much tanner than Peter had ever thought he could be. He continued to be stupidly fit, but he wasn’t as skinny or scrappy as before. He'd either smashed or lost his glasses and the new ones were square with slightly light red lenses. The crow’s feet around his eyes had deepened and, like Karen, his laugh lines were slightly more pronounced. But most noticeably, his hair had been sun-bleached to a bright orange in patches around the top.

 “Well, who have we here?” Matt drawled, holding a hand out to Peter while fending off Karen, who could not keep her hands out of his hair, “This wouldn’t happen to be the reason for my suffering, would it?”

“Nah,” Peter choked out, relinquishing his grip on Foggy. Fuck, he didn’t know where those tears had come from. “That’s still fate, Double D.”

Matt softened and abandoned Karen to wrap his arms around Peter. He smelled exactly the same.

“Long time no see, Spidey,” he murmured into Peter’s neck. Peter laughed at the joke. Double D pulled back and ruffled his hair hard. He ducked away to wipe at his eyes.

“Onward,” Matt said, “We’re burning daylight. I need six coffees and a bagel before I deal with this shit.”

 

 

Wade screamed when he saw Double D and within seconds the two went down swinging.

The new team was profoundly disturbed and disbelieving.

“This guy is Daredevil?” Little Spidey asked, watching Wade take punch after punch to the ribs without so much as a hum. They heard a disgusted yelp when Wade licked Matt’s ear. _“The_ Daredevil?”

Peter watched them fondly.

“Yep, he’s the one.”

Little Spidey and Louis and Dave followed his gaze to where Matt had, for probably the first time in his life, gotten the upper hand and pinned Wade onto his front. Peter was as impressed as Wade was enthralled. It lasted at most three seconds, but still, it was a moment of glory.

Once Matt was where he belonged (pinned securely beneath Wade’s thighs) Wade tore off his gloves to fuck up his hair.

“Little orangey cat,” he cooed, petting aggressively, “L’il angry rooster. Precious l’il carrot top. Steamy bowl of borscht.”

Matt headbutted him straight in his nose and Wade swore and the two were off again.

“Just like old times?” Little Spidey asked nervously. Peter grinned at her.

“I’ve missed these two idiots so much.”

 

 

Matt didn’t have his suit.

“That would have gone down so well in security,” he said sarcastically, “Between that and the stick I would never have made it onto the plane. I have so much shrapnel floating around my body, I got frisked twice. _Twice_.”

Little Spidey thought that that was a cop out and made this opinion known.

Matt didn’t know what to make of Little Spidey, or any of them really. Peter could see him poking around them and trying to feel them out; Little Spidey didn’t know the first thing about him, and so responded poorly to his sniffing and slightly invasive head tilting.

“Stop it,” she snapped the second time she caught him smelling her. Matt grimaced at her and fucked off over to Wade like an angry cat. Peter snickered, Louis and Dave did, too. Little Spidey glared at them accusingly.

“He’s mean and rude, and I don’t like him,” she declared. Peter saw Matt grimace at her around Wade’s shoulder and snickered harder.

“He’s just trying to figure you out, Little Spidey,” he assured her.

“ _You_ trust me,” she barked, “Isn’t that enough for him?”

“It’s not a trust thing,” Peter told her, “He’s literally trying to figure you out. I think you might smell good,” and then as an afterthought, “He’s blind.”

She went rigid.

“For real?”

“For real.” She whipped her head back over to him. He glared and ducked out of view behind Wade’s side.

“Was I really rude just now?” she whispered. Peter laughed harder.

“He can hear you, girl.” Peter didn’t need heightened senses to see her heart rate skyrocket.

“He’s got super-hearing?” she whispered frantically.

“Oh no, it’s much worse,” Matt called over to her.

 

 

Double D sped through Hell’s Kitchen faster than Peter or Wade could track him. The team was in shock, given their recent revelation. Dave was especially sheepish in watching the professional work. Matt hurtled up onto the rooftop to join them and landed pissed off and ready to fight anything that moved.

“What the actual fuck,” he pronounced.

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad,” Peter agreed.

Airport security brought Hell’s Kitchen the Man in the Mask rather than Daredevil, and Peter was slightly worried that they were going to send him back to San Francisco with more than a few stab wounds. Of all of them, Double D had always needed his armor the most.

He didn’t appear to give even the slightest shit, as per usual. God, he’d missed the guy.

Matt jerked North and flared his nostrils.

“Who the fuck is that?” he growled.

“Probably one of your copycats,” Wade told him airily. “You should go have a chat.”

“The other two are bags of dicks,” Little Spidey told him helpfully. Dave looked cowed and a little flattered not to be lumped in with those guys.

Double D didn’t need telling twice.

He brought back the shithead Daredevil copycat, dressed in bright red and scared out of his mind. Matt threw his poor ass on the concrete, then stood over him with a snarl and a fist locked under his throat.

“Speak.” He demanded.

“F-four rings; two in th-in the south, one i-in the West,” the guy stammered.

Huh. If Peter had known the stupid fucker had information, maybe he would have dragged out his performance a few weeks back a little more.

“Fourth,” Matt demanded.

“S-south-east.”

“Of.”

“M-midtown.”

“Get fucked,” Matt ordered. The guy got halfway across the roof before Matt whipped around and clotheslined him, then locked him in a chokehold, “Take off the suit until you get your shit together and grow a pair.” He helpfully dropped him down onto the nearest fire escape.

Little Spidey clutched at Peter’s arm.

“That was efficient,” she whimpered.

 

 

Matt and Dave got along like a house on fire; Matt told him he was thrilled that someone with a good head on their shoulders had taken up his mantle. He then proceeded to rib Dave about kickboxing’s apparent deficiencies compared to the 1000 styles of martial arts Matt knew. Dave got all starry-eyed and eventually started nudging back at Matt’s costume, which made him laugh.

“I’m keeping him,” he announced to the group, then dragged Dave away to help he gather some intel on the groups the shitty Daredevil had talked about. Specifically, which ones Fisk was controlling.

“Good riddance,” Wade called after him.

Matt gave him a middle finger salute and took Dave diving off the side of the building with him.

Wade turned to Peter.

“Please, please, _please_ can we keep him in New York? No one understands me like he does, Pete.”

“Don’t ask me, take it up with Foggy.”

 

 

Peter took his Spideys and set out for Midtown. Louis was yammering away about how _amazing_ Team Red was and Peter eventually stopped them on a ledge and motioned for a group huddle.

“Okay, listen,” he said, making sure they were both paying close attention, “You guys are part of Team Red, too. We’re all in it. You guys are rockstars, like fucking amazing, and I really mean that. And if you ever need help, you can call any of us. We’ll make a group chat or something, Matt will literally hate it, it’ll be amazing.”

He could tell Little Spidey was smiling shyly.

“I don’t say it enough,” he said, “But you two have made the last few weeks and months so much more bearable, so thanks. Really, thank you for that. We’re gonna get into the weeds now, but like, know going in to that, that as fas as I’m concerned, ya’ll are Spiderman, in your own right.”

“Dude,” Louis said, sounding a little teary. He trapped Peter in a hug. Peter patted at his arm awkwardly while Little Spidey grinned wide at him.

“Alright, pack it in,” Peter said, trying to wriggle out from Louis’s stupidly long limbs, “We got a trafficking ring or some shit to take down.”

 

 

 


	6. silver bugs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Wade, do you love me?” he asked. 
> 
> “I’m gonna have to say no,” Wade answered.

“How do you know they’ll be in there?” Little Spidey asked as Peter glared out from his perch at the darkened hotel suite.

She was on the fire-escape above him, while Louis had scrambled into the corner formed by the edges of the building.

“Girl, there are two types of criminals and I can promise you that these guys aren’t the first type.”

“What’s the first type,” asked Louis.

“Evil geniuses,” Peter answered.

The type of people who would organize in Midtown were the kind of idiots who had learned everything they knew about petty crime from video games and montages in movies. Or alternately, the brilliant, rich playboys and scientists who thought they could upset high society. Those guys, however, wouldn’t be caught dead at a Double Tree, not with the Hotel Edison barely half a mile away. That left the idiots.

There was no way in hell Peter was going in there swinging; just because they were hunting idiots didn’t mean they had to become them. He wasn’t Double D.

What he needed was a bug. The spy-kind of bug, not the Little Spidey kind.

“We need to put this on hold for a second,” he said. “I need to bribe Iron Man.”

 

 

“Oh my god,” Louis whispered as they touched down in front of Location 4. It was one of the Avenger hubs in Manhattan; it wasn’t nearly as big as the tower, but it was close by and had the benefit of housing Mr. Stark’s latest project.

Peter yanked off his mask for the retinal scan and quickly registered Little Spidey and Louis as his guests.

“Come on,” he told the two of them.

They bounded after him as he set off towards the lab.

“Is Captain America here?” Louis whispered. Peter should have told him that it was okay to talk normal, but it was kind of entertaining watching him try to keep up the library voice.

“Which one?” he asked. Louis made a high-pitched squeak which Peter wasn’t sure whether to interpret as overwhelmed or delighted.

The elevator doors opened to the lab and F.R.I.D.A.Y. greeted Peter as usual.

“Is Mr. Stark in?” he asked.

“Yes, Boss is currently on ground level 3. Would you like me to alert him of your arrival?”

“No, that’s fine, he probably already knows. Thank you.”

Peter headed towards the ground floor elevators. Then came back and dragged his gaping idiots with him.

 

 

Mr. Stark’s personal labs were always more like auto shops than clean rooms; the first time Peter had seen one, he’d been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of shiny shit in it. He learned very quickly not to touch anything or insult anyone. Mr. Stark considered all his bots people, even the extra shitty ones. He was especially protective of the extra shitty ones.

As per usual, Mr. Stark was blaring classic rock just below the pain threshold of the human ear. Peter scanned his thumb at the door and then immediately started picking his way through the jungle of shit towards the last place he remembered seeing the old man. His juniors followed him nervously.

“SHOULD WE CALL HIM?” Little Spidey shouted over the music.

“THERE’S NO FUCKING POINT,” Peter screamed back.

“AH, PETE IS THAT YOU?” Mr. Stark’s voice shouted. “F.R.I.D.A.Y. TURN IT DOWN TO LEVEL FOUR.”

The music dropped. Little Spidey and Louis were panting slightly. Peter peeked through a hole in the totaled remains of what might have been a car’s fender, but what might equally have been a metal road barrier. Mr. Stark was hunched over a table surrounded by tiny fragments of metal. He glanced over and gave Peter a little wave. Peter hopped up on top of the crushed metal and helped his juniors up, then he jumped down on to the other side.

He dropped an elbow onto Mr. Stark’s desk and gave him a winning smile as the other two scrambled down. Mr. Stark didn’t look up from his tinkering.

“Make it yourself,” he said.

Peter deflated and groaned.

“I didn’t even say anything,” he whined.

“Make it yourself,” Mr. Stark repeated and tsked as the thing he was poking at sparked.

“To _ny_.”

“Pe _ter._ ”

“I don’t have _time.”_

“And yet here you are.”

“I need a bug.”

“I have no bugs, talk to Nat.”

“Liar, I saw one in the lab the other day.”

“Which was Natasha’s.”

“Did she take the prototype?”

Mr. Stark laid into him with a look. Peter grimaced and ducked low under the table.

“You are getting a degree in _what_ now? And you can’t knock up a bug?”

“I didn’t say I couldn’t, I just don’t have time.”

Little Spidey was impressed. Peter was offended; what the hell did she think he did all day? He redirected his attention back to Mr. Stark.

“Please?” he asked earnestly. Mr. Stark was a sucker for the puppy eyes and he knew it.

And he knew it. He studied Peter for a moment, then moved all his shit to other arm of the table. Peter groaned.

“Mr. Stark, come on. I’m just doing what you asked me to. Look!” He gestured at Louis and Little Spidey with open arms.  “I even found friends.”

“You’re working with Deadpool again,” Mr. Stark said flatly. Peter deflated back all over the table.

“We’ve been through this before, Wade—”

“Is a psychopath.”

“—has some mental issues, but that doesn’t disqualify him from doing good work.”

“He sniped the DA’s secretary.”

“And they probably had it coming. Look, say whatever you want, but you asked me to do my thing, and here I am, doing my thing. All the way from Ithaca. With friends. Backup even. And what I _need_ is a bug; can I _please_ have a bug?” Peter put his hands together and executed the puppy eyes.

Mr. Stark glared at him.

And glared at him.

And cracked.

“It’s only a prototype,” he warned, pointing a pair of accusatory forceps at Peter. Peter fist pumped when he turned around and started digging through his drawers. Little Spidey and Louis stared at them both like they’d grown feathers and squawked.

“They don’t have any code in them,” Mr. Stark grumbled, handing over a strip of paper with little metal shells on one side and wires poking out through the other.

“I will get code in them.”

“They’ve only got functionality for a three-foot radius.”

“I will only use them for a three-foot radius.”

Mr. Stark took the strip back and tore off one of the bugs on it. He stuffed it irritably back in his bottomless drawer of inventions.

“There, you can break all of those, you menace.”

“Thank you, I love you, you’re my favorite superhero.”

“Get out of my lab.”

 

 

Peter was pretty sure he’d been elevated to minor deity status in Louis and Little Spidey’s eyes after they’d left the lab. It was nice to be fucking appreciated for once. It was too bad he didn’t have too much time to bask in it.

He physically dragged them back to the elevator. When it opened on the first floor, they ran into an extremely sleepy, bruised and scraped Steve Rogers holding metal box perfectly level in his hands. Like a nervous zombie tasked with carrying a fishbowl.

“Oh hey, Pete,” Steve said. He blearily looked from one Spidey to the other at his flanks. “Did I miss something with dopplegangers?”

He desperately wanted a negative. It was written in his eyelashes.

Peter took pity on the old man.

“Hi, Cap. No, these are my copycats. This is Angel and Louis,” he said, gesturing from one to the other. He heard Little Spidey squeak a little.

“Oh, thank Jesus,” Steve sighed. His shoulders lost all their tension, but somehow he kept that box absolutely balanced. “Is Stark in the lab? I found this, and no one wants to touch it.”

Peter peeked over it.

Yeah, that was a bomb.

“He’s in basement level three,” he said kindly.

Not his problem. Not his problem. Not his problem.

“Aw, thanks Pete. You’re graduating soon, right? Such a smart cookie.”

Fuck, he was slurring. He was going to fall asleep in the elevator.

It wasn’t Peter’s problem.

He had a ring of criminals to catch.

He had.

He had.

He thumped his head against the elevator wall, then held out the bugs to Little Spidey.

“I’ll meet you guys at the Double Tree,” he said miserably, “Cap, I’ll go with you down to the lab.”

“Oh, no, Pete. I’ve got this.”

“That’s a bomb.”

The kids went fucking rigid. Cap looked absently at the thing in his hands. He cocked his head a little and did a mental check-in with his body.

“You know what, maybe you’re right,” he decided.

Peter waved the other Spideys out the door.

 

 

It wasn’t just any bomb, it was a chemical weapon. And Steve had found it on a timer because that was the kind of upstanding guy Steve was. Peter and Tony had to decide if it would be better to disarm it or set it off in a vacuum and hope for the best.

They had to get Dr. Banner’s opinion. And Dr. Cho’s. And possibly Thor’s. And then they needed a team of mechanics. And _then_ they needed to alert the feds. They were going to be there for _hours._

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Peter called Little Spidey from where he was trying to become one with the lab floor in anguish.

“Hello?” She answered, sounding gob-smacked that he’d called her. That was fair, he hadn’t told her he’d stolen her contact info and inputted his own into her phone.

“I fucked up,” he said. “I fucked up so bad, I should have just left it. We don’t really need Steve, we’ve already got our replacement Cap.”

“Dude, where are you? Are you high?”

“I can’t go to the Double Tree.”

“Wait, what?” He heard Louis echo this sentiment from where he was probably crouching down over Little Spidey’s head.

“I can’t leave. We need a whole team on this bomb shit. And I made the fucking mistake to double major in biology and engineering and I have equations I need to—fuuuuuuuuuck.” He sat up. “Hold on, wait. I have an idea. I’m gonna call you back in a minute, don’t move.”

“What—”

He hung up and dialed Wade.

“Hey, baby boy,” Wade chirped on the second try. Someone was screaming close by him.

“Wade, do you love me?” he asked.

“I’m gonna have to say no,” Wade answered. Peter had always suspected he had his own version of the Spidey Sense. Maybe it was his paranoia.

“I need you to take my team to plant bugs in the Double Tree in Midtown.”

“Plant. Bugs?”

“Yeah, like espionage.”

“Peter, I have a gun. I have _two_ guns. Why do we need espionage?”

“Because we aren’t going to kill them? Police, remember? They’re going to the police? The police have the vaccine.”

Wade was quiet in the way he was when he was disappointed in people.

“Just take them, Wade,” Peter snapped irritably.

“Alright, alright. The Double Tree, got it.”

“Don’t kill people.”

“Don’t maim people, blow the cover, the whole deal. I got it.”

“Don’t _kill_ people.”

“Ehn.”

“ _Wade_.”

“UGH.”

 

 

Peter got a text half an hour later from Little Spidey made up purely of punctuation.

He strategically ignored it.

 

 

At seven in the morning, Peter stumbled out of the lab, eyes streaming, and collapsed on one of the couches in the nearest common room. He’d just touched the edge of unconsciousness when his phone vibrated.

The noise he made wasn’t a sob.

But it was a damn close thing.

“Please let me die,” he whimpered into the receiver.

There was a long pause.

“So this is embarrassing,” Matt said, “But has anyone ever told you that you sound just like me?”

“No. Maybe Wade. Please tell me good news. I just defused a bomb.”

“I have great news,” Matt said. “But I think you should sleep first. Give it a few hours and I’ll call you back. I’ll get the others sorted out.”

“Double D, have I ever told you how much you mean to me?” Peter sobbed.

“Sleep, kiddo. I’ll talk to you soon.”

 

 

Matt’s great news was that he’d been shot in the fucking shoulder by none other than the Punisher. He was so fucking happy, Peter started to wonder if he’d not actually defused that bomb after all and had been blown into an alternate dimension.  

He had to admit that watching Karen lay into the guy would probably forever be a highlight in his bleak existence. Frank Castle held his hands up, wide and placatingly, and kept repeating, “I’m sorry,” without sounding sorry, and every time, Karen snapped back, “Don’t apologize to _me._ ”

Since this apparently was not Matt’s fault in any way (for once), Foggy was sympathetic and petted his hair with great concern.

It was a great day for Matt’s righteousness.

Oh, the other great thing was that he’d fought Wilson Fisk. He’d got his ass kicked, even with Dave as backup, but that wasn’t important.

What was important was the gunshot because it turned out that Frank Castle was also trying to fight Wilson Fisk but had neglected to inform anyone of anything. This meant that Frank Castle was unwittingly and unwillingly part of Team Red, and that was the kind of serious man power they needed.

Peter wasn’t sold on the whole murder thing, but he’d managed to corral Wade so far, so he figured—

Wait. Wade.

“Matt, have you heard from Wade?” he asked nervously.

Matt considered him, altogether very well given his blood loss.

“Yeah, I spoke with him. He said something about your bugs not working? Something about—”

Holy fuck he hadn’t programmed them with code.

 “Oh my god,” he whispered into his hands. Matt reached out and batted at what he could reach of Peter’s sleeve to get his attention.

“He said that he took care of it. Said the kids did really well.”

Holy fuck, Wade had made them accessories to murder.

“I’m going straight to hell,” he whispered. Matt was confused. He stopped tugging at Peter’s sleeve and settled back with a complicated expression on his face.

“Wade didn’t kill anyone,” he said. Peter’s heart leapt. He could have sworn Matt winced a little.

“He didn’t?”

“No, went in guns blazing, though. He did the Deadpool thing, just without the bullets. These are low-level perps, they don’t know what they’re doing. They met at the Double Tree in Midtown for Christ’s sake. They were scared shitless. He even called the cops; I think he might be salvageable after all.”

“Alright, alright, already,” Castle was suddenly bitching over everyone in the room. He stomped over to where Matt and Peter were and glared down at them. Peter could actually see him grinding his teeth.

“Red,” he ground, “I’m _sorry_ for shooting your dumbass. I’m _sorry_ for not telling you beforehand that I was going to shoot your dumbass. And I’m—”

He paused to grind extra hard.

Matt maintained the best poker face Peter had seen in his whole time of knowing him. It was more than a little impressive. This was a guy who couldn’t lie about socks.

“Go on,” Matt encouraged. Castle’s mouth twitched, probably due to the immense effort he was putting into not killing everyone in the room.

“I. Willhelp.”

“Sorry, what?” said Matt, knowing full damn well what he’d said.

“I’llhelp.”

“I’ve just been shot, Frank, I’m gonna need you to—”

“I’ll help, you piece of shit.”

Matt swapped out his ‘oh, I’m so innocent and surprised’ mask for the ‘oh, I’m so thankful, you are so kind’ one.

“Frank, we couldn’t ask you to—”

“Shut your fucking face.”

Matt turned to Peter with that horrible mask still in place. He sat up a little on the couch, being sure to play up the fact that his arm was in a sling to take the pressure off his shoulder.

“Well, we _could_ use the help, couldn’t we, Peter?”

What? Well, duh.

Oh no, shit. That was his cue.

“We could,” he said, “But I dunno if we want any blood flowing here, I mean, we’ve already got Wade; he’s a handful on his own.”

Castle looked like a pigeon had broken into his apartment and died in his bed. He snarled a little bit and glanced over his shoulder to Karen. She gave him a furious darkened brow. 

It was super effective.

“I won’t fucking kill anyone.”

“Is that a promise?” Matt asked, just a little too earnest.

“Fuck your goddamn—”

“Sorry, I can’t see your face, Karen? Is that a promise?”

San Francisco had taught Matt how to play dirty.

Castle clawed his hands a little, then shook himself out back into a mature, grown man.

“It’s a promise, Red,” he said solemnly.

Matt beamed at him.

“Frank, I never thought I’d see the day—”

“I’m already fucking regretting this—”

“Jesus loves you, Francis Castle.”

“Literally get fucked, you arrogant—"

“Alright, children,” Karen announced. “It’s time for some R and R. Peter, go home, you’re useless to all of us without more sleep. Matthew, you’re going to take some drugs. Frank, let’s talk outside.”

 

 

Karen Page told Peter to go home, so Peter went home. Karen had that effect on people.

 

 

He answered five of the million emails in his box before Aunt May came in from grocery shopping. He mentioned off-hand that he was exhausted and regretted it within seconds. She shook the story out him, then made him drink a foul green smoothie with chia seeds in it and sleep for a few more hours.

He woke up to Ned texting him asking if he was free for dinner because MJ was in town for a hot minute and wanted poké. She had already decided he was coming.

He went and got fish with them. He stabbed at his rice and asked the two of them if his thighs really were that big. They shared a look without looking.

“Yes,” they both answered.

Fucking terrifying.

“Dude, how are you doing this?” Ned asked out of the blue.

Peter stopped chewing on his straw.

“Doing what?” he asked.

“The TA thing on top of the grad school thing on top of the suit thing.”

Peter thought about it. MJ yanked the straw out of his mouth and got up to recycle it in disgust.

“Poorly,” he decided.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fuck straws, ya'll.


	7. breaking point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They needed a plan. 
> 
> Matt announced that he had a plan. 
> 
> Matt’s plan was fucking awful, as was to be expected.

The next time they met on the meeting roof, Peter apologized to his juniors and Wade for being an idiot with the bugs. He was informed by all parties that a bomb threat was a sufficient excuse for some temporary insanity.

As it turned out, Wade had had a shocking moment of uncharacteristic foresight and had tried to test one of the bugs before he and Peter’s team attempted to sneak into the Double Tree. Delighted by his discovery, they’d reverted to Plan Deadpool which had involved dragging the kids back to his shitty apartment, re-outfitting them in old Deadpool suits, and passing around his basket of weaponry. They’d gone back to the hotel as three Deadpools and had proceeded to scare the living shit out of everyone in the building.

“We got to wear _swords_ ,” Little Spidey told Peter, using her arms to demonstrate in case he’d forgotten how swords were handled.

Wade had further negotiated the situation by grabbing the biggest guy in the ballroom and shooting him in the fucking leg. This scared the rest of the twenty or so guys enough that they got to their knees without much fuss. This was the thing with low-level criminals; they never considered the fact that they might get shot themselves. Wade shot another guy (not in the head or heart or any major artery, he assured Peter) and had the other two wave swords around to keep everyone good and petrified until the police showed up.

As soon as sirens started lighting up the windows, he’d grabbed the kids and they’d all gone careening out windows and doors; they regrouped there at the meeting place. Little Spidey reported that Wade have given them superior hugs to Peter’s because she was a little shit who didn’t appreciate what she had.

It was then decided that they needed a plan to get the ball rolling again.

Matt gave everyone a heart attack at this point by showing up unexpectedly and nearly falling off the building, having forgotten he only had use of one arm. Dave showed up shortly after, panting and apologizing for losing track of their errant lawyer on the way over.

Matt was more than a little high, which was amazing because high Matt had a lot of opinions on things only he could hear and zero brain-to-mouth filter. He was tuned into, and highly invested in, a couple arguing somewhere about, from what Peter could discern, the correct way to fold towels. 

Wade helpfully followed him as he wandered around the roof to make sure he didn’t take another dive off of it.

The whole thing made clear to everyone present why Matt systematically refused medication.

When asked why he hadn’t refused the drugs this time, he shushed Peter and tried to clamp his hands over his mouth. From this, Peter deduced that Matt’s decision-making rights had been temporarily revoked by his friends and that Karen and Foggy were not aware of Matt’s present location. Wade managed to corral him into a hug to keep him steady enough to get through a conversation.

They needed a plan.

Matt announced that he had a plan.

Matt’s plan was fucking awful, as was to be expected. He wanted to go back to fight Wilson Fisk _again_ and the important part of this plan was that this time, he’d win.

His plan was vetoed.

Wade’s plan, which took inspiration from Matt’s, was marginally better, but still terrible. He wanted to have a sniping contest with the Punisher to see who could take out more of Fisk’s guys, then they would send Matt into the ring.

Both of them had forgotten about the three Spidermans. Peter wasn’t offended, he knew how his idiots worked, but Little Spidey was steamed. At her request, Wade amended his plan to include some dramatic crime-fighting on the ground while the sniping was happening.

“Fine. What do you think, college?” Wade finally asked, as Little Spidey was still dissatisfied with this plan.

Peter couldn’t decide the best way to go about it. He needed more information, more expertise, and one less intoxicated team member.

He decided to bite the bullet and call the Punisher.

Frank Castle was not even a little happy to be up with them on the roof so soon. He was not amused by Matt’s sudden affection towards him. Peter was rapidly realizing that he was the super-hero equivalent of the head teacher in a kindergarten.

God, how the fuck did Steve still have hair?

Once he and Matt had been separated, and then once he and Wade had been separated, Frank Castle was capable of coming up with very good plans.

He said it was dumb as fuck to try to take out Wilson Fisk the night after the first attempt. Matt protested, but Peter shut him down and let him pout in Wade’s arms. Castle continued that it made much better sense to leave Fisk for last because the show down would act as a good deterrent for future activity. In the meantime, they needed to stymy the organizing of the other groups. The best way to do this was to find out who was affiliated with who and start taking them down in a chain.

Castle explained that this had the effect of making people really fucking nervous and much more self-centered. People concerned for their immediate safety were a lot less likely to join or keep up with an org. If they got through enough people, then there wouldn’t be anyone but a small core group of people at the top of the food chain, and people like Wade and Matt were pros at handling those kinds of situations.

Peter saw this as the olive branch it was and wondered what Karen had done to this man in the last 24 hours. 

Castle said that they needed to make a timeline and needed to start at the very bottom of the food-chain and work their way up. This meant chasing and putting down a whole lot of petty-crime, even more than they’d already been doing. It was going to be long nights for a few weeks at least.

Matt, even high as a kite, was aware enough to be uncomfortable about this and said he had another week in the city at most; he had to get back to SF (Well, what Peter presumed was SF, Matt described it as ‘gotta catch the fuckin’ 24’). Castle was displeased. Wade was displeased. Peter understood entirely.

Matt had a practice in SF and he wanted Foggy to be safe away from the city, and he’d come all this way to deal with Wilson Fisk. If he’d lived in the city, he might have been game to go from the bottom up, but he had time and money constraints that the rest of them didn’t have to the same extent. He also had a mad shoulder wound.

Peter negotiated.

If Matt could help throughout the week he was still there, and then help them research in the time before he came back the following month, then the rest of them could handle the situation on the ground.

Castle called this a cop out and Matt snapped beautifully back to reality for just long enough to ask him if he’d like to take Foggy to the hospital to receive the final round of tests on his behalf.

That shut Castle up quick. He even apologized.

It was decided.

Then Wade pointed out that according to the timeline they’d mapped out, the final showdown would be around Peter’s graduation.

Peter sighed.

“I’ll just skip it, I guess.”

“That’s fucking stupid,” no-filter Matt pointed out, “What about your uncle?”

Fucking.

Just.

God, man.

Right where it fucking hurts. Jesus.

Peter’s stricken face must have given him away because, even though Wade was the only other person who knew about Uncle Ben, everyone else got a really uncomfortable.

“We’ll just work extra hard to move everything up a week,” Little Spidey said. Castle looked at her like she’d lost her damn mind. She mugged back at him.

“It’s only like an extra five guys a week,” she defended, staring him down, “If it means Peter can go to his graduation, I’m fine spending the extra hours.”

Louis and Dave agreed.

Aw. His heart.

 

 

Peter smashed his head against the window on the bus back to Ithaca in hopes that unconsciousness would relieve the pain in his extremities. Castle went hard, and he expected everyone to go just as hard, if not harder. Really, Wade was the only one who could keep up with him at the time, since Matt was benched with an injury.

It was a record night with 37 arrests.

It helped that wherever Castle was sighted, the police practically sent a riot team.

He was a one-man threat to national security. He was a one-man threat to Peter’s sanity.

Castle didn’t like teams or teamwork and the only reason he didn’t kill anyone that night was because Matt jacked all his bullets. Which was hilarious. There was nothing quite like watching an angry gunman try to strangle a high blind guy capable of fighting entirely with his feet.

They had eight weeks. Nine weeks until graduation.

He could do that.

 

 

Peter became a little obsessed with the news over the next week and kept a running tally of arrests next to his desk in the lab. One of the guys in the lab asked him what it was for and he lied and said it was the number of times he felt bottomless despair while working on his thesis.

The entire lab was trying to get him to seek counseling.

In spite of the arm, (and no longer intoxicated) Matt was a powerhouse of petty-crime-fighting energy. It helped that he wasn’t lawyering at the same time. The Man in the Mask beat the shit out of people day and night for four days and four nights, then fell right off the face of the earth.

He left with about twenty newspapers freaking the fuck out about the reappearance of the real Daredevil. The same papers freaked the fuck out in the opposite direction when he failed to show up to work that weekend.

Peter decided that Frank Castle was secretly a teddy bear under all that hate because, when paired with Little Spidey, and informed that she wasn’t quite twenty yet, he was much more discerning and careful about who he shot and under what conditions. He was still furious because no one knew where Matt had hidden his bullets. Even Matt didn’t know.

Ultimately, his solution was to go get a ring of weapons dealers arrested so that he could steal their ammunition.

Peter decided that this move was technically neutral on the morality scale.

He came back to the city that Friday and took up Matt’s cause. He didn’t stop fighting until Sunday night when he caught the last bus to Ithaca. Despite their best efforts and can-do attitudes, Louis and Little Spidey were getting burnt out. Peter could see them sagging and lagging. They couldn’t keep up with him as they swung through the city like they had been able to before.

Halfway through hauling Little Spidey up from a barely missed ledge, he’d decided enough was enough.

 

 

He went to his supervisor and told her that he couldn’t continue the labs.

She was justifiably shocked.

“Peter, your evals are really good. Your submissions have been just fine. There’s only six more labs in the semester. Is it your personal issue which is causing you to make this decision? Perhaps we can come up with an alternate arrangement?”

“Yes, and no, I’m sorry but we can’t.” Peter said, looking her dead in the eye and shutting down all further questioning. Turns out what worked on Frank Castle worked on normal humans as well.

 

 

He went to his assistant mods for the journal and made them step up. He didn’t have time to be correcting their mistakes every night.

 

 

He wrote the final reviews for his seminars early and threw himself into his research.

 

 

“Dude, did you just drop our lab?” Chanda said when she found him in the graduate lab.

“Sean’s taking over,” he said. He rechecked his results and put them in his data sheet, then he gathered the next material for testing.

Chanda didn’t know what to say. She waited for him finish two tests, and let out a hurt, helpless huff.

“Can you at least tell me why?”

Peter considered it. He set up the third test. Chanda was a great friend and thesis-buddy. She deserved an explanation of some type. He checked the temperature.

“I need to finish my thesis early. Something came up back home and I need to take some time off.” he said firmly.

Chanda put her hands on the table and, after a moment, nodded lightly. He felt bad for disappointing her, but his mind was made up. Funny how things became clearer under pressure.

 

 

Spiderman turned in his thesis a full month early. He was set to defend a week before graduation. He’d started sending his juniors home increasingly early on the weekends. He didn’t have the time or energy to cover up the bruises or eat more to prevent them when he came back from the city.

The entire department was trying to get him to seek counseling.

The girls from the bus had come and found him and begged him to please be careful.

It was well-known that the Spidermen in the city had been ramping up their pace lately.

He was pretty sure that they’d told someone else in the department of his “hobby” and that that person had told some other people, who’d then told some other people because the day after handing in his thesis it was as though everyone in the world was trying to keep him from getting to the city. Chanda wanted him to help her write in the home stretch. Sean needed help with the labs. His supervisor wanted him to guest lecture for her weekend course. A group of undergrads asked him to help them study.

He made his excuses and jumped on a bus.

He sent Little Spidey and Louis home just two hours in that night, then he went out on the town.

 

 

He’d forgotten what it was like to be the unbridled Spiderman, he’d gotten so wrapped up in teaching the others, it had just fallen out of sight. He’d gotten so wrapped up in being a student, being a teacher, being a researcher, and a commuter that he’d forgotten why he wanted to be Spiderman to begin with.

As Spiderman he could be reckless. Stupid. Bold. He swung higher and longer, took sharper dives, fell off of buildings with the certainty he’d never touch the ground. He ratcheted up the efficiency, taking in fifteen, twenty guys in a night. He flew from crisis to crisis.

He felt lighter.

Freer.

There was something about literally being in the wind. Skipping through the city. It loosened the tension in his shoulders. Made him laugh faster, easier. At the joy of it all.

He’d missed it. God, he’d missed it.

He didn’t go back to Ithaca that Monday and he knew how that looked to the department back there. Funny how the real Spiderman showed up in the city when Peter Parker suddenly vanished. Funny how Spiderman stayed in the city the one time Peter Parker didn’t come home.

He found that he didn’t care.

He just kept going.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the 24 is the 4th worse bus line in SF as far as I'm concerned. For all my city folx here is my ranking: 28R, 28, 38, 24. Please feel free to add.  
> For all the non-SF people, all you need to know is that the buses are trash. They are all trash. 
> 
> For anyone who is curious, I headcanon Matt and Foggy as living in a flat in either Noe Valley or the Panhandle in SF because they deserve nice things.


	8. like a bad penny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey, have I told you recently how amazing you are?” he opened with.  
> “What have you done?” Ned accused.   
>  “I have a bad decision I need your help with.”

**[14 May 2:03am]**

**DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : so I got ya boi in my sights red

 **DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : can i shoot him or?

 **DD:** headshot please

 **DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : roger that

**[Read: 2:10am]**

**[14 May 2:15am]**

**SM:** WHAT THE FUCK NO

 **SM:** DON’T SHOOT

 **SM:** THOU SHALT NOT KILL – GOD AND JESUS AND THE LAW

 **SM:** NO KILLING WE TALKED ABOUT THIS

 **S2:** woah I didn’t realize we had a chat

 **DD:** First of all that’s not what the law actually says so

 **S3:** holy shit we have a chat when did that happen

 **DD:** don’t sweat it I know a great lawyer just in case

 **SM:** DP I need confirmation that our target is still living

**[Read: 2:18am]**

**SM:** Now. DP this is not a suggestion

**[Read: 2:18am]**

**SM** : Wade please don’t kill him

**[Read: 2:20am]**

**SM** : WADE

**[Read: 2:24am]**

**DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : pete this is the one time red and i have ever been on the same page in the history of humankind and youre kind of fucking it up

 **SM:** Oh thank fuck

 **DD:** Hi sorry for the wait. I got in trouble. Voice to text doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for secrecy. Sorry man, we missed our chance.

 **DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : i hate everyone in this bar

 

 

The front pages of _The Bulletin_ , _The Times_ , and _The Journal_ were graced by aerial shots of Spiderman hurtling towards camera lenses. The stories accompanying these photographs were variations on reports of the admirable impact Spiderman was having on local crime rates; they speculated on what had kicked his Spidey-engine into gear in the last month, whether he was the original or one of the many copycats, and whether or not this was a temporary thing.

 _The Bugle_ ran the headline “NYC: Vigilante Paradise? Spiderman and Punisher Wreak Chaos on City Streets.”

Frank Castle was a valuable man to have on your team, even when the object was not to kill people. All Castle had to do was show up in a drug den or a skeezy alley or club and people went screaming. Castle’s appearance also resulted in a much higher percentage of people throwing themselves into police custody; Peter had to say, you really knew you’d made it when the guys you were chasing thought that a few years in prison was a lighter sentence than a few minutes in your presence.

Castle thought these guys were hilarious. Peter thought they were smarter than they looked.

Wade, in the meantime, had done a great job of finding Fisk and keeping tabs on him; he found him about once a day and reported that he had met some associates in a condemned warehouse by the docks twice in one week. He’d gotten as close as he dared and gathered that Fisk had collected a good chunk of his old followers and was attracting new ones through promises of cash and stability in the absence of the real Daredevil. He soothed new joiners by declaring his intent to woo the copycat Daredevils to his side. He’d already started courting one of them.

Dave said knew this guy because he kept finding Dave and trying to break his jaw. Matt made no response.

His silence was fucking terrifying.

When Matt wasn’t verbally angry, it meant that he was either in or approaching that nebulous state between Daredevil and the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. No, they were not the same thing. Not by a fucking mile. Peter would take Daredevil over the Devil any day of the week until one or both of them died. The Devil had a whole lot in common with Wade and Wade _loved him_.

For example, the Devil laughed when bullets grazed him. Wade laughed when bullets hit him.

They were a match made in hell.

Halfway through the week before Matt was supposed to return to the city, he broke his vow of silence to send a message to the group.

 **DD:** Stay extended. Two weeks in HK. Finding a fucking house.

Oh good.

He was going to commit fucking homicide and then piss on Fisk’s grave. That was what Peter needed to round off his year. 

 

 

When Matt decided he was going to do something, little besides unconsciousness was going to stop him. The juniors saw his sudden leadership skills as admirable. The Spidey Sense saw them as the first sign of doomsday.

 **DD:** Received information on recent additions. Attached is list of names.

And so there was. About fifty of them. Matt had probably gotten Jessica Jones to track them down and then had found out everything about the poor fuckers on his own. His spreadsheet included driver’s licenses and home addresses. Peter did _not_ want to know how he’d gotten those.

 **SM** : Thanks DD, this is very thorough. I dunno if we need this stuff right now, though. Hopefully we’ll scare enough of them that they’ll reconsider their offers.

 **DD** : Understood. Forwarded to Castle.

Jesus fucking Christ.

 **S2:** Dude that shit is crazy how did you find their socials? Can you do that for anyone?

 **D2:** I respect what you’re doing but I’m pretty sure that is illegal.

 **DD:** It’s only illegal if you get caught.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

 **PN:** I always knew you’d come around eventually, Red. Proud of you, kid. I’m on it.

Holy fucking shit. They must be stopped. The last thing the fucking universe needed was the Devil teaming up with the Punisher for some extra-curricular murder. Peter threw open a message to Wade.

 **SM:** Wade, wade are you seeing this?

 **DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : Oh yes darling. It’s fucking hot if I’m honest.

 **SM:** 1\. No. 2. What do we do?

 **DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : you wanna get in the way of that, Spidey?

 **SM:** Fuck no. But we can’t be having him going full out Devil here, someone’s gonna get hurt.

 **DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : this fucker deserves to get hurt

 **SM:** Wade please

 **DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : just let Red do his thing.

 **DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : he’s a much better strategist when he’s pissed off

 **SM:** I know

 **SM:** but

 **DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : trust me on this one.

 **SM:** Okay I trust you

 

 

Matt sent over a fuckload of horrifically specific information about Fisk’s associates and their favorite meeting places and then, out of the blue, asked Peter if he still had those bugs.

Peter tried to lose them over the next couple hours while running errands.

He stuffed them in his back pocket, half hanging out, and rode the subway twice. Then he went on an impromptu picnic with Ned (who, infuriately, picked up the crumpled paper they were attached to after they’d finally fallen out of his pocket). He even did some minor web swinging with them dangling around.

No fucking dice.

He was gonna trash and burn all his skinny jeans.

“Yes, I’ve still got the bugs,” he said miserably into the receiver when he finally threw in the towel and answered the phone.

The Devil did not give a shit about Peter’s personal life; failure to text back was permission to call him into submission.

“Great. Can you code them and then give them to Jess? She’s going to plant a few for me.”

Of course she was.

“It’s going to take me a little while.”

“How long?”

“A few hours.”

“That’s fine; Jess can pick them up from you while you’re out.”

Peter thumped his head against the kitchen counter. The situation did not get less shitty. Matt chose to ignore his obvious distress; he simply waited Peter out.

This? This shit? This is why the Devil was the fucking worst. Peter wanted Matt, sensitive Matt, back, please and thank you with a cherry on top. 

“Yeah, I’ll…I’ll code ‘em,” Peter choked out.

“Excellent, thank you. I’ll let Jess know.”

He hung up. There was no way in hell Peter could program five bugs in the two hours he had before he had to go out for the night. He called Ned.

“Hey, have I told you recently how amazing you are?” he opened with.

“What have you done?” Ned accused.

 “I have a bad decision I need your help with.”

 

 

They had been coding for _hours_ and only three of the five bugs were done. It had been a minute since Peter had coded for a device; websites? Psh. Easy. Teeny tiny recorders/communicators? Just fucking kill him now.

Ned was much faster. And calmer. Peter punctuated the clacking and shuttering of keys with ‘thank yous’ and ‘I owe you so muchs’ and ‘seriously you are the best humans.’ He was still coding when his juniors texted him asking where the hell he was. With achy, teary eyes he realized it was past the meeting time. He went to slam his head into the keyboard, but Ned, having been on Spiderman/Peter alert for the last ten years, anticipated this and redirected him to the floor to get the agony out. It might have been a gesture of kindness for Peter’s head and laptop, but more likely Ned didn’t want Peter to fuck up the programs he’d already coded and cause more work for them both (mostly for Ned, though, let’s be real).

“Just tell them to come here until we’re done,” Ned said, engrossed in the work, “I don’t care. We’ve still got another hour at least.”

Peter followed the instructions. He had a Pavlovian reaction to Ned’s irritation.

Little Spidey and Louis, with happy addition of Dave this time, arrived and stared at the resident nerds with eyebrows of many shapes and sizes.

“Just sit the fuck down and let me suffer,” Peter sobbed. Ned didn’t look up.

The three of them sat very carefully and quietly across from Peter around the coffee table. Peter could tell they were trying to work out who the fuck Ned was and why Peter had apparently hired him to do something he was perfectly capable of doing on his own. He started chuckling a little hysterically at the thought of himself doing this without Ned. It would be like that time he decided to write his fucking thesis an entire month early. Oh wait. That was last week.

Ned recognized the giggling for what it was and grabbed a stack of papers next to him on the couch to whack Peter with them. He told him to get his life together. It didn’t hurt, but Peter gave the accusatory “ _Dude_ ” required to reset his piss poor attitude. He finished his second bug as Ned announced he was halfway through his third.

He gave Peter the stink eye when Peter stared at him in awe and respect.

“What do you want?”

“Have I told you how much I love you?”

Ned paused to stare at him incredulously.

“You’re an idiot,” he said, “Of course you love me, I’m like, the most lovable person in this room.”

“I owe you like—”

“So much. Yeah, I know. You know why I know? Because you’ve said it a thousand fucking times. Change. Then leave. Then go fight bad guys or fall out of trees or whatever it is you spend your time doing now.”

The juniors were in shock and awe.

“I love you,” Peter whispered as he stumbled off into the backroom to change.

“Are you guys friends?” He heard Little Spidey ask quietly once she thought he was out of earshot.

“Best friends,” Ned said off-handedly.

“Are you a hacker?” she asked. Ned flicked his eyes up at her. He 100% worked for the government on projects he had signed non-disclosure agreements for. He and Peter had had bizarre conversations in circles around his work for months. He wasn’t allowed to even take his phone into his work station at his current jobsite. He was going to fucking Michigan for a month in the fall to do some work on something that he’d be fired and possibly killed for if he explained exactly what it was.

“It’s a bit of a hobby,” he lied gently. Little Spidey slapped her hands over her mask in excitement.

 

 

Peter handed the bugs over to Jessica Jones around midnight; she took them and tucked them into her jacket pocket and turned to leave.

“Hey, don’t die,” she said in lieu of a thank you over her shoulder. Peter was thankful for the mask because his involuntary grimace would have pissed her off for sure.

“Thanks? I’ll try?” he said at her back. She stopped and turned back over to him and the copycats.

“Hey,” she said, gentler this time, “He’s a shithead, but he knows what he’s doing. He’s mad enough to be cold about it, if you know what I mean. We, the uh—you know. Us. We’re all on standby if you guys need help. Already agreed to it.”

That. That actually made him feel a whole lot better. Matt really was going into this with a level head.

“Thank you,” he said with more force this time. She nodded and sauntered back off.

“Was that Jessica Jones?” Dave asked, “The actual Jessica Jones?”

“No,” Peter said, “That was Jessica Jones, Matt Murdock’s other other best friend. The actual Jessica Jones is gonna be our backup if shit hits the fan over the next week or two. You don’t want to meet her.”

“Other other?” Little Spidey repeated. Peter shrugged.

“Double D says best friend is a category, not a person. He has like three best friends.”

“Are you in there?”

“No, thank god. I think I rank among well-liked associates.”

He started to take them back the way they came. Wade was waiting for them at Fisk’s meeting place. He wasn’t there that night, but they needed to see what they were getting into. He and Louis were going to go by web while the other two were going to follow on the ground. He brought up Google Maps to drop a pin for them.

Little Spidey squinted at him like she was unsure of what to do with this information.

“Are we yours?” she asked.

He stopped. He hadn’t thought about it. But now that he did. Well, he had to be honest here, they’d know he was lying otherwise.

“Not yet,” he said evenly, “You guys don’t know me--real-people me--very well. But ya’ll are getting up there. You’re probably some of Spiderman’s best friends if that helps.”

Little Spidey was disappointed with this, he could tell. Louis and Dave seemed cool with it, but probably because they were a little older and didn’t have as much to prove. He’d been there; a young’un trying to demand respect and entrance into a community gatekept by literal super-humans. He reached back and shoved her a little bit.

“Did you know,” he told her softly, “That the first person who ever took me, both of me, seriously was Wade?”

“That’s not true,” she grumbled, shoved him back twice as hard, “You had like, Iron Man or something.”

“Nah, he totally just used me for his own shit the first time we met.”

Louis and Dave were paying close attention too. It was weird to think that people all over New York were desperate for this kind of information, supers’ backstories, their motivations, the whys and hows and whens and wheres. Mr. Stark had kind of set a precedent for being out and loud about that kind of thing, but the rest of them, even Rogers-Cap, not so much.

They’d all been through so much. No one wanted to talk about it. You either knew it or you didn’t, and if you didn’t, you asked someone who did.

He didn’t want to be a gatekeeper like that if he could help it. He scrapped the plan to swing to the location and gestured for all of them to follow him. He kicked up the pace, fast enough to get where they were going, but slow enough to chat.

 “I met Wade when I was a kid and totally by accident,” he said towards Little Spidey. “I actually met Double D first; he told me my form sucked and then fucked off. He wanted nothing to do with me. His thing was kicking ass and taking names back then, and I think he was pissed off that I kept wandering into his territory. Wade came and found me not too long after that, and I straight up thought I was going to die.”

Little Spidey giggled at him. He poked her hard in the side and dodged the onslaught in return.

“Seriously, I was tiny, you should have seen my suit, it was your size.” Little Spidey was smiling under her mask. That was better.

“My size?”

“If not smaller. I was like a string bean. Not even baby thunder thighs.”

“Doubt it, but whatever. Wade came and found you and?”

Wade came looking for me and he was fucking huge and he had all his swords and shit and he was talking to himself and all I knew about Deadpool at that point was that he was a psychopath who took no prisoners. “

They were getting closer to the warehouse. Probably another ten minutes. He gave Louis, then Dave a boost onto a particularly high set of balconies and let them get Little Spidey up before he joined them.

“And then what?” Little Spidey agitated.

“Well,” he continued, “Baby Spidey didn’t know the first thing about anything so when he showed up, I fucking beat it.” He laughed in remembering, “And he took that as a challenge. So we played the deadliest game of tag for like, a month, before he remembered that he was fucking Deadpool and legit just shot me in the leg. I was sure I was gonna bleed out. Stuck me like a deer, you know? He came down and realized he’d just shot a kid. Wade doesn’t do that shit to kids, you can count on him for that. So before I knew it, I was being hauled into this guy’s arms and started having a panic attack because I hadn’t heard that he _wasn’t_ a cannibal, you know?”

“He’s not a cannibal,” Little Spidey defended.

“No, of course he isn’t. But when a guy like that picks teeny-weeny you up, you’ve got about three options: rape, murder, or dinner. I was being optimistic.”

“Shit man,” Louis said softly, “That’s fucking scary.”

“Yeah, well. He’s not that scary when you get used to him. And once you’re not scared of Deadpool, your tolerance for scary-ass motherfuckers increases exponentially.”

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Little Spidey pressed.

“Girl, he’d just shot me in the leg,” Peter scolded, “I’d never been shot like that before. He tried to take me back to his place to patch me up, but like hell I was going back to some assassin’s den. Started fighting and screaming and crying. Made him feel good and guilty. The second he dropped his guard, I got the hell out of there. Got home, too. My aunt and Mr. Stark were not happy. Mr. Stark started keeping a closer eye on me from then.”

“But wait,” Little Spidey said, “How did you guys end up working together, then? If you were so scared of him.

A good fucking question, my dear.

“I accidently teamed up with him a few times after that—didn’t mean to, just didn’t have much choice--and he kind of bullied his way into teaming up with Double D once or twice. Then we all kept knocking into each other for odd jobs until one day, all three of us landed on the same job at the same time and got it done in record timing. We did good work, so we traded numbers and the rest is history.”

They scrambled down the final tilted roof home to the meeting place.

“Why did you guys stop, then?” Little Spidey asked on the way down.

Another good fucking question, my dear.

“You telling our love story, baby boy?” Wade asked from his nest. He had the gun and scope up. He was watching something through the scope, dead still, the way he was when he was conducting business.

“Telling them about the time you tried to butcher me,” Peter said. He hunkered down beside Wade who let him look through the scope. It didn’t look like there was anyone in the building, but someone had left a light on. Wade started cackling, shaking out his earlier stillness.

“Oh my god, I thought you were gonna start screaming ‘stranger-danger.’ Nearly dropped your ass.”

“You _did_ drop my ass.” Peter flinched back as a dark form appeared at the bottom of the lit window and buffeted along the edge. “The hell is that?”

“ _That_ is my suicidal raccoon friend, Barbara,” Wade said in the voice of a man in a perpetual war against nature. “Ain’t scared of bullets. Really into voyeurism. Bitch is covered in babies, as if I give a shit about her fucking kids.”

Peter squinted into the scope.

“That’s a possum, Wade, raccoons don’t wear their babies. Jessica took the bugs, you know if she’s been in or out? Why’s that light on?”

Wade wouldn’t answer the question until he’d gotten out of sniper mode. He rolled onto his back and started doing back exercises. Peter kicked him so that he scooted back more. Wade convinced Little Spidey to walk on his back to pop it. It took both her and Louis to get the job done.

“Thank fuck. Man, I am getting old. Okay, yeah. Red’s angry hot not-girlfriend did her B&E successfully. Don’t know where she put the damn things, she’s a smart cookie. Kept well away from my windows. Light’s on because some dumbass didn’t turn it out. No-one’s in. No-one’s out. ‘Cept fucking Barbara. Get a fucking sitter, girl.”

Peter activated the bugs through his suit. He listened. Listened harder. He put his head down under the scope and tried to block out the sound. Wade saw what he was doing and threw one of the tarps he’d put down over his head. He hushed the copycats.

There was nothing but static.

“I can’t tell if they’re working,” Peter said. “We need someone to go in there and make some noise to test it.”

Wade lifted only his head to grin at the copycats.

“Hello volunteers!” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A teeny bit of some team red backstory because I felt it was lacking.
> 
> my little sis has one of those 'I cannot tell you anything under pain of death' types of jobs. it's alright, she hates her coworkers so we have plenty to talk about


	9. nothing like boat racing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They needed a priest.   
> They needed some holy water.   
> They needed a swat team or at the very least someone who knew what they were doing.   
> What they had was Dave.

Angel had signed up for a lot of things in her life. Basketball. Dragon boat racing. Ballet. But Not. Fucking. This.

They needed a priest.

They needed some holy water.

They needed a swat team or at the very least someone who knew what they were doing.

What they had was Dave. He wasn’t a priest or a swat team, but he was…something. Dave was the literal soccer dad of a stupidly athletic twelve-year-old. He instructed a class of angry middle-aged women in self-defense as his day job. He was basically soft-core Daredevil for real. His impenetrable white-dad privilege gave him the courage to wander into a condemned warehouse like he was arriving for a slumber party. He kept saying things like ‘oh wow,’ and ‘well, this is great!’ completely unironically, like those were normal things to say when they could have the living shit pounded out of them by a Fisk-lackey at any second.

Angel and Louis stayed crammed together as close as humanly possible behind him. Wade said that there were only four things they had to accomplish. They had to go into the building. They had to walk up to the floor with the light on. They had to turn off the light. Then they had to go out of the building. Spidey said that he would be listening to see if the bugs were working while they did that. They weren’t supposed to look for the bugs which was good because Angel was looking exactly _nowhere_ in this haunted shitshed.

Louis was praying next to her for the Lord’s protection. She took a second to join him and then they moved on to try to find their wayward, violent dad.

It was a warehouse so there wasn’t too much to explore. There was some old, old shipping equipment from the docks, which made sense. It was covered in dust and cobwebs. There were some cracking and rotting wooden crates stacked up in one of the corners. Fucking cockroach city; hell no. Of course Dave was over there poking at them.

“Man, don’t,” Louis pleaded. Dave’s dad senses tingled at his distress and he abandoned the crates to rejoin the two of them.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said airily, “And if there is, then we’ll just fight it.”

“Dude, you’ve been spending a little too much time with the real Daredevil,” Louis hissed at him, “In case you forgot, we are not enhanced. Unless you’re hiding something in which case now is the time to fucking tell us, David.”

Dave was nonplussed.

“My name’s not Dave, you know, that’s just what Wade decided to call me.”

There were ropes and chains hanging from rusted pulleys up in the rafters. Cobwebs fluttered around them in the light of the lamp left on in the loft. How the fuck were they supposed to get up there? There weren’t any stairs. Angel looked around for a ladder or some rope or something.

“Okay, Paul or Newton or whatever the hell your name is, you enhanced or no?” Louis asked.

“It’s Ansel.”

 Aha! There was a crude ladder made out of nasty rotting ropes over by the wall.

“Of course it is,” Louis groused, “And you have sailed right past the point.”

“Hey, we’ve gotta climb up,” Angel said. Latched as she was onto Louis’s arm, she dragged him with her over to the ladder.

“Oh, _yes_ ,” Dave said, like he’d been training his whole life for this moment.

“Yeah, dude. Go ahead and channel some of that Daredevil,” Angel said. She did not want to climb a rotten ladder. She did not want to run into somebody—anybody—and, most importantly, any _body_ up there in the loft without backup.

“Relax,” Dave told her gently, it pissed her off even more, “Deadpool and Spidey are back there watching. You wouldn’t want to embarrass yourself in front of your hero, would you?”

Fuck him. Spidey wasn’t her hero. He _was_ her hero, but he had revealed himself to be a nerdy, diplomatic white guy with a foul mouth and some kind of depression. Her new hero was Wade (and her mom, obviously, but for superhero, definitely Wade). He was super cool and all about being yourself and all that shit; that was the kind of positivity she really needed in her life. Anyways, from what she could tell, Wade was Spidey’s hero, too, even though he’d lied and told Iron Man that he liked him best. If Wade was good enough for Spidey, then he was good enough for her.

“I’m not scared,” she snapped. Dave held up his dumb red-gloved hands placatingly. Then he headed over for the ladder. Louis nudged her and whispered,

“Girl, don’t even trip, Spidey already thinks the world of you. Let this dumbass do what he’s gonna do.”

“I don’t care about Spidey,” she whispered back. Louis gave her an unimpressed look which was hard to do through the mask. Spidey’s eyes were made of much better tech so he could make all kinds of faces; he didn’t seem to know he was even doing it sometimes, especially when he was angry. One of his eyes twitched.

Dave was halfway up the ladder like the cross-fit fiend he was. Angel girded her loins and stalked up to the ladder. She glared up at it and wrapped her hands around it. It would be just like rock-climbing; only with more give and less stability. And no one at the end of the rope. It was fine. Dave was nearly at the top already.

“Hey, don’t grab there, it’s torn,” Louis warned. “Here, I’m gonna give you a boost. Get the one above.”

Louis was the MVP, really. She took the boost and got a better hold of the ladder and then started to climb. Louis hopped up onto the ropes next to her and joined her. He was better with heights and web, so it didn’t seem like a big deal to him.

They got up there with Dave and looked around. Dave waved out the window and a light flicked back at them. Wow, Wade was always super prepared. Angel crept forward to the window.

It hissed at her and she and Louis screamed a little. It was the possum. She had a million little babies on her and was extremely unhappy with the unexpected guests. There was a crack in the wall next to the window which was filled with nasty shit. It was probably her nest. Angel edged away from the window and tripped right over an arm.

A fucking arm.

A _fucking_ arm.

She screamed which alerted the other two; Louis contained his gasps in his hands and his neck and Dave jumped into dad-action. He grabbed her and pulled her away from it, to put his body between hers and the fucking arm. It didn’t move.

Oh god, it was a body. She _knew_ there’d be a body. That’s always how these fucking barns and shit worked.

“What do we do?” she whispered. Louis knelt down next to the arm and, with a huge grimace, touched it to feel for a pulse.

“Oh,” he said, his face smoothing out.

“What’s up?” Dave asked.

“It’s warm?” Louis tracked the arm under the mess of tarps and rotting wood and shit and started clearing it off of where the shoulder would be. He glanced back. “A little help?”

The other two joined him. They cleared the rubble away and found that the arm was next to a fucking gun. A huge fuck-off rifle. Like Wade’s. Louis froze. There was the edge of a tarp there. He got a grip on it and gave it a sharp tug.

It was a blonde guy. Medium build, buried halfway in the rubble. He was laying on his belly like he’d been sleeping, but the poor guy had bruising, the deepest bruising Angel had ever seen around his neck, like someone had strangled him. He was breathing, though. She started to drag him out.

“Peter, Wade, if you’re listening, there’s a body—a person in here,” Louis said as he and Dave rushed forward to help her.

Angel’s phone rang. She answered it.

“Do not fucking touch him,” Wade snapped.

“Guys stop!” she yelped. The other two froze and stared at her. “Wade says not to touch him.”

“What are we supposed to do, leave him here?” Dave asked.

“Pete’s headed your way,” Wade said. “That’s Hawkeye.”

Angel looked down at the guy. “Wade says this is Hawkeye,” she said. The other two exchanged a look and let Hawkeye’s arms go carefully. He didn’t make a thump as he hit the ground. Dave pulled off a glove and held a hand in front of his mouth.

“Well he’s—”

 

 

So Hawkeye was a little hair-triggered.

He might have choked Dave a little bit. And tried to stab him a bit. And then tried to shoot him in the head. But then Spidey put in an appearance and came flying up onto the loft. He didn’t shout or anything, which was not excellent given that Dave was dying just a wee bit up there with them and Hawkeye had one gun in his face and another, which he seemed to have pulled out of nowhere—wasn’t this supposed to be the arrow guy?—pointed right at Angel’s chest.

“Hey,” Louis was saying shakily, “Let’s go ahead and put that down; there’s no need for this, there’s been a misunderstanding,”

Hawkeye didn’t look away from Angel. His eyes were blue. He looked tired and hunted.

Spidey slipped behind her and then Hawkeye, she didn’t even hear him move until he showed up behind the guy, then reached out and tapped his shoulder.

Hawkeye flew backward and trapped Spidey into a mean nelson, shoving his face hard into the rotting wood floor.

“Don’t move!” Spidey shouted to the rest of them. “It’s alright, we’re alright.” He squirmed half out of the hold until Hawkeye lost his grip on one side and went down. He went to re-establish it when Spidey got both his hands free and suddenly started gesturing.

Wait.

Signing. He was signing.

Hawkeye stopped.

“Oh fuck,” he said. “That you, Pete?”

Spidey nodded his head and his hand in case Hawkeye couldn’t see it.

Oh fuck.

Hawkeye was deaf.

 

 

“Oh man,” Hawkeye said, just a little too loudly, “Totally didn’t expect to run into you over here.”

Spidey yanked off his mask and started talking and signing at the same time.

“What are you doing here? I thought you and Barnes were on a mission?”

Hawkeye watched with his head cocked, then made a face like he’d just remembered a Very Important Thing.

“Oh fuck, Barnes.”

He dug through his pockets and then cursed.

“Lost my goddamn—lost the other one too---c’ _mon, man_. Give me a fucking break. I deserve a fucking break.”

Spidey laughed and offered his own phone.

“You aren’t looking for Fisk,” he spelled it out with his fingers, “are you?”

“Who?” Hawkeye asked. Spidey spelled it again.

“Nah, man. I don’t know who that—oh _shit._ No, no that’s the one with the—the bald one right? Huge?”

Spidey nodded.

“We’re looking for him. Wade’s tracked him to this place. How long have you been here? Have you seen him?” He asked.

“Who’s tracked him?” Hawkeye asked for clarification.

Spidey made the gesture again. A muscle in Hawkeye’s neck jumped.

“Oh, Wilson. Kid, there are better crazy people to hang out with. I mean, Nat is basically a sociopath if you really want someone with a problem telling wrong from right. Oh, or Barnes, actually, although he’s been better about it. Or, hell, or—you know what. I know too many people like that. Just hang with me, Pete, you’ll get your fix.”

Hawkeye was actually kind of funny when he wasn’t trying to kill you. Dave was a little traumatized.

“I’m working with Daredevil and these guys,” Spidey was saying. When did he have time to learn sign language? Wasn’t he already doing a million things all the time? Was polyglot-ism a prerequisite for becoming a superhero?

“No shit, Double D? The hell has he been? Haven’t seen that guy for ages.”

“Barton,” Wade announced.

“His hearing aids are fucked,” Spidey called back over.

“Well, shit,” Wade said. He started up the ladder. “He happen to know why Sergeant Bucky Fucking Barnes just tried to take my head off?”

Spidey asked Hawkeye.

“Oh,” Hawkeye said, still a little too loudly, “So he is still hanging around. Fucker doesn’t have the grace to come dig my ass out of trash, though? The hell are you Barnes? I thought we were friends.”

“Jesus Christ, Clint. I was on my way,” A new voice said. Wade made a fake scream and pointed at the guy in the middle of the room. He was a huge with black Kevlar. Angel remembered him from when she was a kid. The Winter Soldier. Only he looked more squinty and grumpy than when he had flipping over cars and trying to murder Captain America.

“His hearing aids are fucked,” Spidey reiterated, “And looks like someone took his phone.” He signed as he said this so that Hawkeye could see what he was saying.

“That’s because he’s a moron,” The Winter Soldier growled. “I’ve got his backups, come here you shithead.” He could sign, too. Hawkeye straight up went to jump off the edge of the loft before Spidey grabbed him and reminded him that that was a terrible idea.

“Oh, no. He’ll catch me, man. We’re assigned as partners for two more months. You’ve been doing a great job, by the way, asshole!”

“Let him fall, kid, he’ll regret it, it’s fine.”

Wow. The Winter Soldier was kind of a dick.

Once Hawkeye had new hearing aids in, he was much more aware of what was going on around him. And apologetic.

“Dude, if I had known they were _your_ bugs I would totally have left them alone,” he said. “But I might have put them all in the possum nest? That might have seemed really fucking funny at the time? I’m really sorry? I’ll go get ‘em right now.”

For some reason, Spidey, Wade, and the Winter Solder stepped in all at once waving hands to tell him he didn’t have to do that. Angel didn’t see why not, since he was the one who put them there. Hawkeye didn’t either.

“Hey, no. It’s totally fine. I’ll just go get ‘em, just a second.”

 

 

So the reason Hawkeye was not allowed to do anything ever was because he had the worst luck in the history of the universe. Of all mankind. Apparently, his shit luck was so legendary that everyone who was anyone in the superhero community knew about it.

He was attacked by Barbara, the suicidal possum.

He got the bugs, though, along with maybe rabies? Spidey accepted the bugs graciously and verified that they were indeed working. He then went to go hide them in the most disgusting crevices he could find in the shitshed.

The Winter Soldier took Hawkeye away to get him tested for rabies. He said that they weren’t looking for the same target, but it turned out one of their targets was working for Fisk. He said that he intended for said target to never walk again. He said that Fisk wasn’t his problem, but he could be if someone had two hundred bucks and a pack of cigs.

Spidey leapt up onto Wade’s back and clamped both hands around mouth and said “That is super kind of you, but we’re good. Totally good. Beyond good.”

The Soldier shrugged and said that it was a standing offer.

On the way out, Wade told Hawkeye not to look up rabies online. Hawkeye immediately looked up rabies online and started freaking the fuck out just outside the warehouse entrance. Wade told Angel very seriously not to google rabies.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly y'all I wrote little spidey to hate her and I've kind of fallen in love
> 
> And now I know all y'all are gonna go look up rabies on google, but if you have any hypochondriac tendencies whatsoever don't say I didn't warn you.


	10. very culty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “New rule,” Peter interjected, “Don’t get hurt.”   
> “Seconded,” Wade announced.   
> “Alright, team break,” Matt said.

Matt joined them shortly after they verified that the bugs were in working order. He wanted to know why Hawkeye kept messaging him about being really fucking careful around vermin.

Wade refused to let anyone tell him about the possum.

Peter was pretty sure Matt was now interpreting ‘vermin’ as a euphemism for ‘terrorist’ and was preparing himself accordingly.

That was fine. That was good actually, the more prepared he was the better.

The audio they’d gotten from the bugs was worrying, to say the least. Peter was pretty sure Matt had saved it to his phone and played it at night as the devil’s fucking lullaby.

Wilson Fisk was indeed planning to woo some Daredevils and at this point, he’d already collected two of the three. He used his mayor voice to tell all his new pets about how it wouldn’t be just Hell’s Kitchen which would be cleaned up from there on out. It would be the whole city.

“We deserve better than this,” he said, as if he was somehow part of this group of people. “The people who have abandoned this city, the system, the ‘heroes,’ the so-called vigilantes and their arbitrary justice, we will overturn them. We will put them where they belong, where they have been trying to put you for just trying to live your lives. For suffering in the system which they made to oppress you.”

He really had a knack for flipping a situation so that a bunch of shitty low-life criminals could imagine themselves as having been oppressed.

Very culty.

He could see why Matt hated the guy.

Little Spidey wanted to know why they needed him living.

Wade squeezed her cheeks and told her she was coming along great.

Matt told them that they were going out hunting that night, but he needed to set some things in order beforehand. He very calmly dismissed them and then vanished from the roof with his square glasses and his pressed suit jacket.

 

 

Peter went home and hibernated until Aunt May woke him up and threatened him with scurvy if he didn’t eat the bright blue smoothie she’d concocted. He was impressed that he’d slept through the blender. And somewhat concerned.

The smoothie was vile. Tasted like pond scum. She said it was a superfood. He said it was toxic. She went online to verify that it wasn’t actually toxic.

They were good.

 

 

 

Frank Castle met them at the meeting roof in Matt’s place. He said that Matt was off with some of his other people at the moment and that he’d be on his way shortly. Peter chose to interpret that as securing reinforcements/backup.

Matt showed up half an hour later in full Daredevil attire. Dave went a little starry-eyed. It had been so long since Peter had seen it. It looked like Matt had finally taken it in for repairs and let his guy put a new coat of paint on it. That must have been where he’d gone earlier in the day.

It felt kind of nostalgic. It had seemed so much scarier when Peter had been smaller. Now the thing that was really scary was Matt’s blinding smile.

He looked like he was about to have the greatest time of his life. It was infectious. Skirting along the line of unhinged.

“You still look like an idiot,” Castle greeted him.

“Better an idiot in a helmet than an idiot without,” Matt told him through the smile. “Alright friends, the goal for tonight is simple. We’re going in to wreak a little havoc. We’ve got to scare and/or escort as necessary as many people out of there and into police custody as humanly possible. I have organized some help with that. Fisk will wait; do not engage with him. If you see or hear his ugly mug, go around. We’re going to shake the foundations to get people good and off balance before the showdown.”

“Do we get teams?” Wade asked excitedly. Matt considered him.

“Sure,” he said. “Deadpool and Castle are our snipers. Hawkeye may join your team if his painkillers wear off in time. Rubber bullets only,” he said sharply. Wade and Castle pouted in opposite directions.

“Spidey and Spidey III, you’re on external air and ground support; there’s not enough room for web fighting inside. Don’t let people get away too easily. Let the police through when they come; don’t fight them even if they’re stupid. Let ‘em through. The rest of us are inside, close combat. If I say to go, you go. Get out whatever way you can. If I give the signal, some others will join. If I can’t give the signal, Spidey, it’s your call. After Spidey, Deadpool, after Deadpool, Castle. Signal is the distress call to the Defenders. You’ve all got their numbers. Wing is your point person.”

Peter was getting a little excited. Wade gave him a huge smile through the mask.

“This is gonna be so much fucking fun,” he squeaked. “I’m even third command, Pete. You hear that? I’ve been promoted from last in command.”

Peter grinned back.

“Wade you’ve been demoted, you used to be second.”

“What. Oh. Whoops; I’ve been demoted, Pete, you hear that?”

Castle looked like he sincerely regretted agreeing to everything leading up to this. He edged a little bit farther away from Wade.

“Rendezvous back here, regardless of what happens, by no later than 4am,” Matt said, “You get hurt, get the fuck out ASAP. Chuck the suit. Get to your medical support of choice. If you don’t have one, one will be provided for you,” he said with all his teeth showing. “I, for one, am great with a bottle of scotch and a needle.”

Ha.

A joke. Good joke. Blind man. Needles.

Ha.

He didn’t say that like a joke.

“New rule,” Peter interjected, “Don’t get hurt.”

“Seconded,” Wade announced.

“Alright, team break,” Matt said.

 

 

The light wasn’t on the in the window this time. Although from Deadpool’s swearing in his ear, Barbara was there standing guard in full glory.

“Is that a cat?” Daredevil asked.

“If anyone says anything I will fucking end you,” Deadpool reminded them all.

Peter was starting to regret the comms a little.

“Guns in position?” Daredevil asked.

“Roger that,” the Punisher graveled back.

“Air and ground?”

“Confirmed,” Peter said for himself and Louis. “A-team, you guys ready to go.”

“Born ready,” Daredevil said. “Guns, on your mark.”

“Copy that, hold steady,” the Punisher said.

Peter couldn’t even see him or Deadpool from wherever they’d hidden. He wasn’t actually sure they were using the same perch as before; he couldn’t imagine two snipers fitting on that roof.

“Your man’s got himself a pulpit,” the Punisher said.

Matt chuffed derisively. The Spidey Sense sprang up and down Peter’s back.

“On your mark” Deadpool said. “Get set. Oh for the love of--move you little shit-stick. Damn right. Fucking--”

The glass shattered.

Go-time.

 

 

“Don’t fucking move, Louis,” Peter ordered. The Spidey Sense was ripping up and down his spine. There was already chaos starting up in the building. People trying to figure out what took out the glass. Peter didn’t see Matt get over to the window, but he did see him draw himself up into it. Matt really knew how to work the light and his angles for a blind guy. From behind, he just looked like a guy standing in the window. From the front, he would definitely looked like a bat out of hell.

Peter knew this because of the screams.

“Holy shit,” Louis said over the comms.

Matt dropped in through the window. Little Spidey and Dave flanked him shortly thereafter.

“Hold steady, Louis,” Peter reminded him. They had to wait until people started trying to leave.

“Spidey, put in the call,” Matt ordered over the comms; Peter could hear the ruckus around him.

“Confirm.” Peter called the police.

“Hello? This is the—”

“Hi, it’s Spiderman. Is this Alyssa? Hey girl, remember me? I’m in Hell’s Kitchen by the docks. We need enough people to arrest a shitload of assholes approximately yesterday.”

“Um. What are the uh, circumstances?”

“A super violent riot of petty criminals, rapists, human traffickers, drug traffickers, and possible white supremacists?”

“Right, about how many persons are involved in the altercation?”

Peter didn’t hear her, he had to deal with the five guys making a break for it. Two of them tried to fight him, one went down easy with the web, other was persuaded by the super-strength. Really, all that drama. He hadn’t even dislocated that elbow.

“Sorry,” he said into the phone, “well, for sure, five. But I’m guessing it’s gonna be somewhere in the ballpark of thirty to fifty.”

“Oh dear.”

“Yeah. Okay, sorry, gotta go! I’ll see you soon!” he hung up, “Louis, you alright?”

No answer. He caught and wrestled a guy to the ground. Locked his arms with web. “Louis?” He tripped another guy and sent web hurtling around at thigh level to trip an oncoming group. Then he sprang for higher ground.

“I’m okay! Wow, these guys are heavy!”

Oh, thank god.

“Spidey, you guys in good shape to take a flood?”

“Louis, get up where I can see you,” Peter demanded. The suit told him that Louis was three hundred yards away on the ground with a guy, “Drop him and get up high.”

Louis finished with the guy and went sprinting for high ground. As soon as he got there, Peter called it in.

“All ya’ll inside get the fuck down,” the Punisher ordered. Peter could just see the inside of the building from the shattered window. He watched a head drop. There was a scream as someone took a rubber bullet straight on. It was followed by a series of screams at the bullets started raining down. People started gunning it for the entrance.

“Spidey, you got this?”

“Confirm, that,” he barked into the comm. “Louis on my mark, jump down, look fucking scary. We’ve got about two seconds before we start slinging for the knees. Deadpool are you on the front line?”

“Roger that,” Deadpool confirmed. “Ya’ll would not believe this fucking cat.”

“Are you sure it’s a cat?” Daredevil’s voice finally broke though.

“ _Now,_ Louis,” Peter snapped. People were fleeing Castle’s latest rain of bullets. The warehouse was in uproar. He leapt from his perch and rolled when he hit the ground. He drew himself up fluidly to face the oncoming group of people. Those in front slowed down a little, shocked at seeing Spiderman. He started to slink forward, dropping his weight dangerously from hip to hip. He put some calf into his walk and upped the speed. The less stupid of the front lines saw that threat for what it was and were caught between running back towards the building and getting the full force of Spiderman in their face.

Peter didn’t give them too much time to think. He threw web low at the front line so that by the time they’d realized they wanted to run, they couldn’t. The incoming round would trip over their fellows.

He heard a scream inside and analyzed it for a second to make sure it wasn’t Little Spidey. It wasn’t. He went barreling towards the building, throwing web as he went. His goal was to make a literal web across the whole dock. They wouldn’t make it to the water or back to the parking lot if he had his way.

 

 

Now, Peter knew he wasn’t a very big guy. And these motherfuckers realized that too, and some of them, if they got through the web, had the brilliant idea of going straight for the guy making it.

In general, he didn’t really like close combat. But some of these fuckers really needed a fist in the face. Matt said non-lethal force, so they were getting broken noses and dislocated shoulders as he went. He got about fifteen yards from the warehouse and tore back the way he came. He could hear Wade taking care of those who were trying to get into their cars.

“Sirens, police, one mile and closing,” Daredevil snapped into the comms, “Spidey 2, D2, I’m---” The sound of something colliding with the comm rattled through.

“Red, you need some help?” the Punisher asked, “You’re looking like you need some help, pal.”

“—Fine—” There was a crunch and a shriek over the comm.

“For _fuck’s_ sake,” Daredevil spat.

“I’m alright!” Little Spidey shouted through her comm. “You don’t have to—or you can do that. That’s fine. Wow, they’re really a lot stupider than they look.”

“I’m going up, handle this,” Daredevil ordered across the comms.

“On it!” his two supports answered.

 

 

On his way back, some guy got Peter good in the stomach. It knocked him down and a group took the opportunity to gang up.

Man, those ribs had just fucking healed. Go for the head, you idiots.

He heard a shout above him and one of the guys dropped.

“Get the fuck off the ground, both of you,” Deadpool sang.

Louis. Shit. Fuck. Damn.

Peter put his back into it. Literally. He threw himself up and switched into efficiency mode. Aim for the nose. Aim for the balls. Aim for the kidneys. Put ‘em down. Put ‘em down.

He gunned it towards Louis. He found the guy surrounded by a smaller group; Wade had evidently taken some of his guys off him as well. He laid into them. Nose. Balls. Kidneys.

When Louis got up he screamed the mantra at him and once he seemed to get into the swing of things, he went hurtling back to his side.

“Police are here,” Castle said. “Drop it, Spiderman, SIII. A-team, ya’ll need support?”

“Double D’s gone,” Little Spidey called. “That big fucker took him and he’s gone. “

“Shit,” Peter swore. “Double D, where are you?”

No answer.

“Double D, you need support?”

No answer.

“Red, give us a signal or we’re changing the chain,” the Punisher growled.

No answer.

“Spidey, that’s it. Command’s over to you. Waiting for your mark.”

Oh, shit.

Get it together, Parker. You’re in charge, now, pal.

“Police are in,” Peter could see them running past, starting to drag people out of web. “Let ‘em pass. Only self-defense. A-team, who’s in there with you?”

“Maybe ten guys,” Little Spidey answered. She made a noise of pain that was somewhere between a growl and a yelp.

“Dave’s got two. I’ve got—well I _had_ two. Double D’s still—oh, there he is.”

“Go!” Matt’s voice barked, he sounded more than a little hoarse. Getting strangled somewhere, man? “ _Now_ , go, go go.”

“Dude, your head is—”

“Fucking _scram_. Dogs of hell and all that. _Beat it._ ”

Well, okay. He could do that.

Peter headed back towards the parking lot; he saw the shape of Louis in his periphery vision. The two of them hit the street and went tearing for the rooftops. He nearly ate it when Wade popped up like a fucking daisy in the middle of the first building’s shipment containers. By the time Peter tripped over him, Wade was already folding everything he’d brought with him with terrifying efficiency into a huge black bag, he threw it onto his shoulder and joined Peter in the sprint. Frank Castle joined him and Wade and Louis about half a mile away from the warehouse. His bag almost matched Wade’s except he’d put some kind of fabric at the top and bottom, so it wouldn’t slip.

They hit the rendezvous point and Peter collapsed. The adrenaline was confused with the Spidey Sense and they were both making him a little light-headed. Wade dropped his bag next to him and flopped down. Louis dropped where he landed and splayed himself out, panting.

Little Spidey didn’t quite make the final jump, but Castle caught her and hauled her up.

“That. Was. Amazing!” she declared. She threw an awkward hug around Peter since there was no way in hell he could be vertical.

Dave tiredly heaved himself up and over the edge of the roof and then sat panting, trying not to puke, into his knees for a moment.

Matt was last up.

He definitely had a concussion.

He was bleeding massively from a crack in his helmet.

He stormed over to Wade and dragged him up by the front of his suit and furiously spat,

“It was _fucking possum,_ you shithead.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you think I didn't throw clint and barnes in that last chapter just to make a joke about a fucking possum, you, my dear, have been deceived  
> I love possums with my heart and soul. American ones, though, take your precious Aussie squirrels far from me.


	11. trust no bitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Mr. Murdock?” May Parker’s voice said. 
> 
> Matt startled, then jerked towards Wade to verify that they were both hearing the same thing. Wade’s heartbeat was just as surprised as his own.
> 
> “May Parker,” he said, “Is everything alright?”

“Wade, I am looking for an office, not a dungeon,” Matt said, fingers pressing into his temples and then immediately regretting it as pain lanced around the side of his head.

“And I hear you,” Wade countered reasonably, “But what I’m also saying is that it never hurts to keep an eye out for places to store a secret weapons cache.”

“I don’t _have_ a secret weapons cache.”

“People change, Maxwell--”

“That is not my name.”

“—and there’s no time like the present to start collecting explosives.”

“Please tell me you know that that is not my name.”

Matt’s phone announced that he was receiving a call from Peter.

He sighed and answered, “Peter, I have known this man for ten years—”

“Mr. Murdock?” May Parker’s voice said.

Matt startled, then jerked towards Wade to verify that they were both hearing the same thing. Wade’s heartbeat was just as surprised as his own.

“May Parker,” he said, “Is everything alright?”

 

 

Everything had been fine until Peter looked up and saw his defense was that Monday.

Then everything had been fine until he reread his thesis.

Then everything had been fine until Aunt May sat down beside him on his bed, in Uncle Ben’s old spot, and took his hands in hers and told him how proud she was of him. How proud Uncle Ben would have been. How proud his mom and dad would have been.

And then everything was fine until the second he realized that there was no one in the world he wanted to proud of him more than Aunt May.

She’d stayed in their apartment, even after swearing she’d move, just like he knew she would. She’d always kept his room just as it was, even though he rarely came home. She’d never asked to be a mom, never wanted it, not even with Ben. And then one day, this kid she didn’t even know that well, just barely out of toddlerhood, was dropped in her lap, in her home, and she was told to deal with it. And sure, she’d loved Ben, but she’d never wanted kids, had never been interested in that kind of responsibility.

And yet she’d taken this child into her arms and held him there all his life.

Even after the only person connecting the two of them had died. Even when the only things holding them together had been a sense of obligation and a shared last name.

He and May shared no blood.

But he would be damned before her sacrifice--all of them, all of the nights staying up and tears pouring out and the constant gnawing fear for her nephew, her son, to be dropped dead on her doorstep—he would be damned before those sacrifices, her sacrifices, all went to waste because her nephew, her son, couldn’t stand up to a panel of humans who’d never cradled a child’s life in their arms over the edge of the Brooklyn bridge. A panel of people who’d never been crushed under a thousand tons of wreckage and stood up anyways.

They had no idea.

They had _no_ idea of how amazing he was. How amazing she was.

He couldn’t let her down.

 

 

He sent out a message to the group saying that he had to go back to Ithaca. He packed his bag and gave Aunt May a hug and she promised she’d see him on Monday. She stroked his hair away from his temples and then gave him another huge hug.

He arrived back to Cornell Sunday night. Something was off the second he set foot on campus, but he steeled himself.

Peter Parker was Spiderman and Spiderman was Peter Parker. He could do this.

He crossed the threshold of the lab building Monday morning in the sharpest clothes he owned, and the Spidey Sense rang through his spine. It was fairly normal in the hall, people were standing in doorways, mugs of caffeine in their hands. When they noticed him, however, they stopped talking and watched him walk down towards the lounge. His wasn’t the only defense that day, so he tried not to think anything of it, but that it was hard.

The people in his department were many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. The particularly astute among them could make the connection between the disappearance of Peter Parker and the explosive news coverage of Spiderman’s recent dramatic team-up with Daredevil if they cared enough to do it. And given the sheer number of pictures of him floating around the internet lately, Peter couldn’t fault them too much if they did.

He was constantly amazed by the number of eyes on people like them when they went out in the streets. Someone had gotten a picture of Matt and Peter en route to the warehouse and it was the press’s favorite. The lighting emphasized Peter’s tiny waist and massive thighs, in a way which anyone who had worked out with him or knew him fairly well could identify him by, but Peter had decided not to be self-conscious about this. Or at least he _had_ until Little Spidey had described his thighs as ‘juicy.’ The resulting horror was enough to help him disassociate them completely from his mental image of himself.

Problem fucking solved.

Furthermore, it was good that whoever had taken that picture did so when they had because the disaster that was Matt’s head after they got back from the warehouse could have won them an Academy Award for visual effects. He’d informed them all haughtily that he had not had the shit beaten out of him by Wilson Fisk because he’d gotten a few good punches and a lucky bite of his own in. In Matt-logic, this meant that he hadn’t technically lost.

Lucky for them, Claire Temple was in the area and was willing to patch them up so long as she could lay into Matt while she did it. He took it with as much grace and poise as a guy recently traumatized by a possum, the kingpin and Wade Wilson could. To keep him conscious while she set his head, then his fingers, then his ribs right, Frank Castle held his hand and cooed at him sympathetically. This enraged Matt enough not only to keep him conscious, but to send him into occasional, writhing spasms of displeasure.

It was a good memory to have as he walked down the hall to the classroom where he would defend. It was ten in the morning and the girl before him had just finished. He squeaked into the lounge while he waited for her panel (read “torture”) to end. About twenty minutes in, things weren’t looking too good for her, and he’d developed the new hobby chewing his nails to the skin. Chanda poked her head in the lounge and beamed at him.

“Well look what the cat’s dragged in,” she said. Peter gave her a nervous smile, then went back to assaulting his fingers.  “How was the city?” she asked.

“It was okay,” he said off-handedly. He was busy fantasizing about every possible way he could bomb this shit.

“Fight any crime?” Chanda asked. He stopped chewing and stared at her.

“No,” he said cautiously. It was hard to keep his cool while he was dying inside.

“Not even a little?” Chanda pressed.

Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck

“No,” he said, “Why would I fight crime?”

“No reason,” Chanda said lightly, “Are you ready for your defense?”

“Girl, why would I fight crime?” Peter asked again, his heart pounding. He didn’t have time for this shit but fuck, he was fixated now. Chanda breathed gustily and shook her head.

“Everyone’s not saying it, Peter, but I think we all know what’s up. First those rumors about cosplay. Then you just dropping everything early. It’s--honestly, it’s fucking crazy. Like the most. Like, I watched you choke on your own snot that one time and that’s pretty hard to reconcile with the whole—”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Peter said in a voice much higher than intended.

Dear god.

Lord Jesus.

_Someone._

He knew it would happen eventually, but if there was any benevolent deity in the entire cosmos, he would sacrifice a limb if they’d please hold off on this shit show for one more week.

Chanda stared with concerned eyebrows.

“Yeah, see, it’s this kind of shit that makes it so unbelievable.”

“I am so confused by what you are saying,” Peter couldn’t make his voice come the fuck down, “I am a normal human being with normal city-people habits and a family emergency.”

Chanda settled back into the couch and folded her arms.

“Convincing,” was all she said.

“Parker!” Someone cried. It was a handful of people from seminar in the door, some of themwere  dressed just as stiffly as himself. Apparently, people were going around doing the solidarity thing which was exactly what Peter did not need.

“Hi,” he squeaked.

“Man, you are incredible,” One of the guys, Aeden or some shit, Peter couldn’t remember people’s fucking names in this state. Especially not when they kept saying words like these.

“I think there’s been a mistake,” he whimpered.

“Dude, no way. You’re—”

“A MISTAKE,” Peter cut him off, “There’s been a mistake. Some kind of rumor. Uh. I only, uh. Only did that cosplay thing once, it was for a convention. Because I’m a nerd. Surrounded by nerds, like the most nerdy.”

A hush fell on the group which, to Peter’s horror, had grown as nosy-ass people lingering in the hallway came to see what the fuss was about.

“Uh, Peter,” one of the gals said, “Your uh, hands?”

He looked down and found that he might have torn out part of the arm of the couch. He looked back up at everyone. He carefully set the broken wood and fluff where it had once belonged and smoothed it over to hide the tears.

Maybe a little more smoothing would hide his own, imminent tears.

Or maybe he’d just go to the lab and gargle acid until the moment passed.

“I think, I need to be somewhere not here,” he said calmly. He startled to push and shove his way through the crowd, but Chanda caught his arm and dragged him back.

Someone started clapping. A few people joined. Before he knew it, the hallway was resonating with applause and he was fucking crying. This was exactly what Mr. Stark had warned him about. He’d spent ten years evading this nightmare and everything was ruined just minutes before his defense.

“This isn’t funny, you assholes,” he choked. Chanda put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed tight.

 “Peter,” a bright voice from the back called. It was one of the undergraduate girls who he had resolved to kill for starting this disaster, “You’re my favorite hero.”

Aw.

Right where it hurts, you stupid little shit. This is all your fucking fault.

“Stop,” he said, “I’m not Spiderman. I’m _not._ This is a mistake.”

Chanda threw her arms around him and he involuntarily caught her.

“You’re my favorite hero, too. Even though you’re a nerd.”

An explosion crashed through the crowd. People gasped and ducked, and Peter reflexively threw Chanda behind him only to realize in horror that Wade Wilson was standing at the back of the crowd with a bag of party poppers in his teeth.

“Oh hey, Pete!” he said through the bag, “That guy down the hall says you’re up.”

Oh. My. God.

“Who the fuck is that?” someone whispered nearby.

“What are you doing here?” Peter snapped over their heads. Wade shrugged.

“Your aunt invited me. Don’t worry, I brought all kinds of noisemakers. Got a cowbell. Got an airhorn. You would not believe how hard it is to find those things at this time of year. So much fucking silly string, like four air horns in all of New York.”

Peter pressed his fingers into his eyes and breathed.

“Wade, that’s for graduation,” he said calmly. Wade cocked his head inquisitively.

“This isn’t?”

“No—wait. My aunt—”

He whipped his head down the hallway to see it innocently empty.

No way. She wouldn’t.

“Wade, please tell me you are the only one here.”

Wade made a calculated decision. Peter could it in his scarred-up face. Whatever he said next was going to be a horrendous lie and Peter was positive that this? This was his new low. Nothing could top or even bottom this.

“I am the only one,” Wade said.

Holy shit, she’d invited _everyone._

“Excuse me,” he told everyone lightly, “I have to die.”

“Oh my god, is that Deadpool?” someone whispered.

Peter made a beeline for the door. He stood in front of the entrance to the defense classroom which had been emptied and refilled, its door closed, while he’d been busy being tormented by a trial of his peers. Wade popped up behind him and gave him a squeeze on his shoulder.

“S’alright, kiddo, you’re gonna be great,” he assured him. And it was assuring, despite the fact that he knew he was going to open that door and have a fucking breakdown under the pressure of having to be a coherent, reasonable person in front of a panel of his professors and, apparently, half of the super community of New York.

This was not helping his fucking cover, guys.

“You’re going to be fine, Peter,” Chanda said behind him. He glared over his shoulder at his collection of gossipers.

“I hate every one of you,” he declared. They giggled. He opened the door and was met by the cheer of a truckload of his nearest and dearest friends and idiots crammed around tables. Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner and Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes were all crammed together behind one table while Matt and Karen and Claire and Hawkeye, of all people, had squashed themselves around another one. Steven fucking Rogers and Mr. Wilson and Sergeant Barnes were sitting with Ned and MJ, whispering conspiratorially in the center of the table. Little Spidey and Louis, holy fuck he was gonna cry, and Dave sat with Aunt May next to Wade’s empty chair; they waved at him shyly.

A few of his friends and lab mates who hadn’t taken time out of their lives to harass him in the lounge, as well as a handful of professors, filled in the space in between. It was a full house fronted by his poor, shell-shocked supervisors and independent reviewer.

“I hate everyone in this bar,” Peter announced.

It got a bustle of chuckles. Peter pointed at Aunt May.

“You in particular.”

“Love you, baby,” she chirped in response. Little Spidey dissolved into giggles.

“Did you steal my phone?” he accused.

“Don’t answer that,” Matt stipulated from his corner (and through his headwound, Jesus, man, go home). Aunt May grinned at him.

“My lawyer says I can’t comment. But we’re all so proud of you, honey. Now go on. Teach us some science.”

Peter went up to the podium and loaded up his powerpoint. Then he took a deep breath and tried.

 

 

It went smoothly, or as smoothly as it could have gone with that many outrageous, enhanced human beings in the room. He answered the questions passably, even though he looked up to see Dr. Banner half-suffocating Mr. Stark to keep him from throwing down with his reviewer at one point.

He left the room as soon as he was allowed and went to lay on the floor in the lab.

Home, sweet home. Oh how he’d missed you, floor.

Aunt May was on him in a second, scolding him for doing that shit in public and bringing disgrace upon their family. Little Spidey had decided that she _loved_ her and giggled mutinously at him from behind her hands. He pointed a menacing finger at her, but emboldened by May, she didn’t shut up.

Mr. Stark invaded the lab to grab Peter by the scruff of the neck and shake him with congratulations and to also talk unmitigated shit about his independent review who was standing, horrified, out in the hall.

Wade was flirting with his main supervisor.

His department friends and professors were falling over themselves trying to speak to Steve Rogers who was himself trying to initiate his amazing impression of a hermit crab. Matt had wrestled the party poppers away from Wade and had passed them off to Karen to keep them away from Hawkeye.

Peter was instructed to go grab his bag, so they could get the secondary location, a barbeque Aunt May had been planning for weeks in a nearby park.

As soon as he stepped into the lounge to grab his stuff, the rest of the department, undergrads and all, cheered. On the board was written “Congratulations George, Lena, Gabriella, Spiderman, and Kayla!”

He stared at it for a good ten seconds before turning slowly to eviscerate everyone in the room with his eyes. Ned and MJ ducked in to see what was taking him so long; they also noticed the board.

“So,” Ned said gently, “Probably not ideal.”

Peter grabbed for him without looking. MJ mercifully caught one of his wrists.

“I need a fucking drink,” he said.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HA guess who's annual review is on Monday?   
> Hint: it's me. 
> 
> As a note, basically the entire department was sworn to secrecy by Stark's legal team wielding NDAs after this. Peter's good, he's cool, he's safe, don't trip ya'll.


	12. wile E. coyote

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Got somewhere to keep them?” Matt asked.   
> Wade looked down at the guy’s face and evaluated.   
> “Mm, I don’t. But I know a couple guys who do.”

Sergeant Barnes waited until the end of the Peter’s celebration to inform the team that he and Hawkeye had caught their man; the one on Fisk’s team.

Hawkeye got all choked up when he told them that the poor fucker had fallen spectacularly into a storage unit. At first Peter had been concerned that the guy had put himself into a coma or murdered a child or something while he was in there, but it was quickly revealed that the storage container in question had been purchased by the dynamic duo before them and had been mutilated to include a hole in its top, covered with a tarp. The idiot had fallen, literally fallen, right into their shitty trap. Barnes and Hawkeye were both so charmed by this that they’d renamed the mission Operation Wile. E. Coyote.

They thought this was one of the funniest occurrences of the century. Right after that time they’d hidden Sam’s boots in the deep freeze.

Once mostly composed, they reported that their coyote had transformed into a canary shortly thereafter and had revealed the locations of two of Fisk’s personal residences. It hadn’t been what they were looking for, but the guy knew what he was talking about because he worked security for Fisk, in addition to being an ex-HYDRA and ex-SHIELD operative.

Barnes and Hawkeye texted the team the addresses of the alleged residences and cheerfully and horrifyingly reported that if they learned anything new, they’d get in touch.

They resolved to check out the locations the next day, once they got back to the city. Stark offered to give them a ride back, which Matt refused on the grounds of supporting a “gentrifying piece of shit.” He fucked off to catch a bus. Wade went with him, arguing that the bus had a more exciting atmosphere on it. Everyone else clambered in and passed out for the next several hours home.

 

 

Castle tracked down both of Fisk’s locations and pronounced one of them a steel trap and the other a concrete fortress. He’d taken a few pot shots at the windows as a friendly reminder to the kingpin to stay on his toes.

He’d received a storm of fire in return and then made it his personal mission to shoot out all the glass in both buildings.

Which was, okay, a bit overkill, but everyone needs a hobby.

By the time the team made it over to the location Castle believed Fisk to be at, they were met with two Daredevils who just wouldn’t quit.

Actually, no.

They were met with Fabio from eons ago who had taken a few lessons since and a guy who Peter could absolutely believe had murdered a few people. Matt threw Fabio off the side of the building without an ounce of regret and that was him taken care of.

He then went for the other Daredevil as the Devil.

It was kind of terrifying sometimes, to watch Matt fight because he had a very tenuous code of honor. As in, his code of honor extended mostly to friends and neighbors and first-time offenders; after that, he was much more interested in having people stare death in the face and repent.

The other Daredevil had to be enhanced from the way he was holding his own against Matt. Peter moved to join in but met Wade’s hand on his chest.

Matt took several cracks to the head, right over his injury. He dropped down to the ground and went absolutely still, which sent Peter’s heart rocketing. The Daredevil snorted and stepped over Matt’s body in their direction, but Matt, who had apparently found his soulmate in Barbara the possum, whipped over and caught his knee to bring him crashing down on top of him.

He smashed the guy’s head into the ground to disorient him, then locked his arms behind his back. And only then did he look up and jerk his head towards Wade.

“Get your ass over here, dumbshit, I need you to sit on him.”

Wade practically skipped to it.

 

 

The Daredevil refused to speak and laughed in Wade’s face when he asked for his input on how high he wanted to be able to count unassisted. Wade saw this as an opportunity to t-bag the guy while Matt sighed and let the struggle continue.

“Where’s the other one?” he asked the team. Peter looked behind him at where Fabio was trying to intimidate Little Spidey. It wasn’t working.

“Your username is DDluv94,” Little Spidey reminded him, disappointed. Fabio saw nothing wrong with this. She sighed harder but refrained from punching him while he was down.

“Little Spidey’s got the situation under control,” Peter told Matt.

“This is a fucking disgrace,” Matt decided. He jerked his head over his shoulder. “Wade.”

Wade was busy, having elicited a few groans of despair, but he innocently directed his attention to Matt.

“Yes, darling?” he twittered.

“Got somewhere to keep them?” Matt asked.

Wade looked down at the guy’s face and evaluated.

“Mm, I don’t. But I know a couple guys who do.”

 

 

Hawkeye and Barnes were more than happy to lend their team the Wile E. Coyote storage unit. It was fucking nasty. They’d 100% bought it at an auction. Hawkeye informed him that it had once contained fish, which explained only part of the disgusting smell which arose from it.

“And before that?” Matt asked, hands locked over his face. He sounded a little like he was dying.

“Possibly a body,” Barnes offered like a psychopath. He frowned, then scratched his stubble in thought. “On second thought, maybe two.”

“Definitely two,” Matt gagged. He abandoned them to go puke away from the docks.

“We’ll take it,” Wade proclaimed. Hawkeye gave him the keys to the padlocks.

 

 

After a bit of airing out, the smell in the unit wasn’t half as bad, so the guys inside were pissed off and uncomfortable, but they weren’t in danger of dying.

Unlike one Matthew Murdock.

If he hadn’t known better, Peter would have thought Matt was seasick on dry land. As things were, he came across as a person with one-way food poisoning. Or severe morning sickness.

In short, he wasn’t having a great time.

Dave tried to offer him some anti-nausea medication, but the smell of the chemicals and the smell of the unit formed the perfect toxic mixture to get Matt to tap out. They found him later hiding in some ancient scaffolding, cursing the universe and Wade in particular.

The guys weren’t willing to talk, but their absence sent a clear message to Wilson Fisk. They just had to wait to see what he did next. Castle and Wade went off to watch him through Frank’s collection of broken glass masterpieces. Wade had named the exhibit “come at me motherfucker,” which Peter thought was poetic in a fight club kind of way.

Peter and the juniors did their best to rehabilitate Matt while the two snipers did their work. Little Spidey and Louis went off to find nice smelling things to repair Matt plague-style. He wasn’t miserable enough to rain on their parade and nudged Peter to keep him from telling them that it didn’t work like that.

Little Spidey brought back a car air freshener and a can of Old Spice which made Matt regret his earlier indulgence. At least he was puking into a trashcan this time instead of behind the rocks at the docks. He declared Little Spidey a demon straight from hell and spent the next half an hour hiding in a niche two stories up from the rest of them. Peter told her not to be offended. Matt had once taken a whiff of his new cologne after an intense showdown and had told Peter that he couldn’t decide whether to throw himself or the bottle off the empire state.

“Is there anything he likes the smell of?” Little Spidey asked, peaking out to see if she could see their resident gargoyle. Peter leaned out with her. Matt grimaced at both of them and shuffled further back into the niche.  

“He’s really into his boo,” Peter said. “He’s got a weird thing about melon.”

“Hello, children,” Wade announced as he slid down onto their scaffolding with Castle in tow. “We come bearing good tidings.”

They all sat up a little straighter.

“The hell is Red?” Castle asked.

“Away from the brimstone,” Matt barked from above them. Castle squinted up at him, then looked down to see Little Spidey’s attempts at plague-doctor medicine. He looked back up while Wade commandeered the car air freshener and stuffed it in his suit. Castle turned to him.

“You trying to ward him off?” he asked. It took Wade a second to realize what was going on, then he leapt up the side of the building to go rub himself all over Double D. Matt’s shouts of protest morphed into shouts of distress pretty quick. Castle grinned up at them.

“The tidings?” Peter prompted.

“Huh? Oh. Fisk is not happy,” Castle said. “Punched right through the wall. Almost got the shot in, but he moved his fucking hams out of the line of fire.”

“But he’s there for sure,” Peter confirmed. Castle hummed in acknowledgement. Matt’s sounds had died off in what Peter could only presume was dejected acceptance. “Okay, so we go in there and what, double, triple, quintuple-team him?”

Castle looked at him like he was stupid. Fucking rude. Peter had an incoming piece of paper with his name and “Master of Science” on it.

“Nah, two teams,” he said, “Need one to distract the guards, another to go in for the kill.”

 “We _aren’t_ —”

“It’s an expression, Christ.”

Matt swung in upside-down from his perch.

“I got this,” he declared, miraculously recovered from his recent trauma. Castle snorted.

“Nice try, Red. You had your shot. It’s either me or Wilson who’s doing this. You’re on distraction, Lord knows you got the look for it.”

“Don’t objectify me, Francis. “

Peter scrubbed at his face and sighed.

“Wade, get down here,” he called. Wade dropped down past Matt and landed neatly on the scaffolding.

“Is Castle right?” Peter asked.

“Mm, well yeah, mostly. Fisk is expecting Red, he ain’t expecting the Punisher or Deadpool. We weren’t visible at the warehouse.”

“ _I’m_ doing it,” Matt ground out. Wade nudged his shoulder, so he had to reshuffle to keep his balance. Little Spidey swatted at his other shoulder to try to instigate the same effect but wasn’t quite tall enough to reach.

Peter blocked them out and thought. True, Wade and Frank hadn’t been visible at the warehouse, but that didn’t mean Fisk didn’t know they were on his tail. The Punisher and Deadpool had been spotted over the last weeks taking out crime, he had to know they were involved to some degree. Matt was obvious, and Fisk would expect Daredevil to come. He was even antagonizing Matt by throwing other Daredevils at him. But Matt was the most familiar with Fisk’s fighting style and Matt had gotten Fisk behind bars more than once over the years.

Fisk was unpredictable, however, always had been. Sometimes the best way to deal with people like that was to fight fire with fire and no one in the universe was about to argue that Castle and Wade were not fire in this scenario.

Peter sure as fuck wasn’t going in there as team lead. He and his juniors didn’t stand a chance in that kind of confrontation. But they couldn’t just send Wade or Matt or Castle in by themselves, they’d lose focus in a heartbeat.

Fuck. There were too many options.

Welp. That meant there was really only one way to do this.

“Okay,” he finally said, “Let’s do a coin toss.”

 

 

“Heads you’re on Matt’s team, tails you’re on Wade’s team and at the end we’ll flip for who goes in for Fisk,” Peter explained. “If the teams aren’t reasonable, we’ll flip again.” The juniors loved this game, he could already tell.

“This is patently unfair,” Matt argued as Peter balanced a quarter on his wrist. “We all know that I am cursed.”

“Can I phone a friend?” Wade requested.

Peter flipped first and got tails. Wade cheered.

Little Spidey flipped next and got heads. She pouted hard. Matt requested a do-over and was denied.

Louis joined Wade. Frank got Matt and groaned in defeat. Dave got Wade. The teams were unbalanced, but that was fine since they had an odd number.

Matt and Wade rock-paper-scissor-ed for the right to flip the coin for Fisk. Matt lost (predictably) and then lost again (poor guy). For a second there, Peter thought he might actually cry, but he pulled himself together enough to be insufferable and whiny.

“You are all ruining my destiny,” he declared.

“No Red,” Castle said, “We’re sparing your husband.”

 

 

Wade, having become the de facto leader of the team, immediately called time out and said he had to do something before they got started. He told the rest of them to go get some sleep and to report back at sunset.

Then he vanished leaving everyone else pumped and without anything to do.

Castle shrugged and went to return to his safehouse somewhere in the city. Matt grumbled and trudged off to have Claire look at his head and then sleep off the heartache. The rest of them broke and split off for home.

Peter texted the group to remind them to check on their storage-unit folks intermittently. Wade said he had it covered and told Peter to shut the fuck up and go to sleep.

Yessir, leader, sir.

 

 

They reconvened on at the meeting point, but Wade showed up with two extra people in tow. Neither Peter nor Matt had met these people in their lives and were just as confused at the rest of them at the intrusion.

“Uh,” Peter started. Wade cut him off preemptively:

“As the leader of this super-troop, I have made the executive decision that we’re gonna need hell of a lot more luck and firepower than we currently have to get through the concrete funhouse ahead of us. And so, allow me to introduce you to Luck,” he gestured to the stunning black woman next to him with a patch of pale skin around her eye, “And Firepower.” He gestured to his other side where a man built like a brick shithouse with a metal arm was standing.

“They also answer to Domino and Cable,” Wade added as an afterthought. “And they are _mine_ , Red. No stealing.”

Matt smiled charmingly at Domino. She quirked an eyebrow and waved back lightly. Wade grabbed her hand and put it by her side.

“No flirting, I said,” he added, “That is a married man, missy.”

If Matt could have winked at her, he would have. God, they were both so fucking embarrassing.

 

 

Domino and Cable (also known as Nathan, or Nathan-boo-boo as Wade occasionally called him and as Little Spidey immediately adopted) were about as cavalier about the whole thing as Wade was, which was fucking terrifying. Between them and Frank, Peter was starting to worry that his juniors were going to start picking up bad habits.

Also Domino would not stop flirting with Matt and Matt was physically incapable of not flirting back. She turned him down flat when he offered her to join his team however, stating simply, “Nah, I think I’m supposed to be here on this side.”

When they reached the location, Wade and Castle explained that there was a fuckload of guards and people on every floor of the building and that the top three were crawling with Fisk’s guys. They estimated about 20 or so per floor. Matt’s team was in charge of the impending fighting marathon. He, Castle, and Little Spidey would get in and make as much of a fuss for as long as possible, until Wade gave them the signal that everything was done.

Wade belatedly reassigned Dom and Cable to Matt’s group and told them to make it count. Plus points for theatrics. Wade assigned Floor 3 to Domino and Cable. He assigned Floor 4 to Castle and Little Spidey and he assigned Floor 5 to Matt, with Domino or Little Spidey supposed to come up and join him if things got a little too much for him to handle.

While those guys were wreaking chaos on the poor saps on three floors. Wade, Peter, Dave, and Louis were going to go in on the kingpin. Wade informed them that starting now, they were going to fight dirty.

Peter was uncomfortable with this, but he trusted Wade.

“Fine, we ain’t gonna kill him,” Wade relented after a little light badgering, “but he’s going to the pigs unconscious or screaming, nothing in between. The bigger show he goes out in, the less of a headache for everyone in the future. Whoever takes his fucking place ain’t gonna need this many of us to take out ever again.”

They clarified that Peter would call the cops at the twenty-minute mark because that was probably about how long it was going to take Team Wade to get to the fifth floor. If shit got out of hand, the chain of command went from Wade to Castle to Matt to Cable, which Peter didn’t entirely understand but accepted because most of those guys were professional assassins and ex-soldiers who knew exactly what to do in the worst possible scenario. The Defenders were on standby. If Wade ordered evacuation, then people got the fuck out, no questions asked.

“Okay, friends, are we ready to do this?” Wade asked.

“Nope, just a second,” Matt said; he dug a bottle of five-hour energy out of his armor as well as a small container of espresso. He dumped the one into the other and knocked it all back.

 “Should kick in, in about twenty minutes,” he assured Little Spidey’s horrified face.

“Red, I think you might die,” Castle noted in awe.

“Nah, this is how I got through the bar,” he said.

“This guy’s a fucking lawyer?” Cable asked.

“Hey, you got any to share with the class?” Wade asked over him. Matt dug out _another fucking two bottles--_ Jesus Christ, he was actually suicidal--and handed them over. Wade made everyone take a sip, then made Louis take another after he spit the first one out.

“Okay, now are we ready?” he asked.

There was agreement.

“Alright, let’s go, kids. Dom, lead the way.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god thank you so much to all y'all who wished me luck on my annual review  
> you're all so fucking sweet  
> for the record: THIS BITCH PASSED WITH FLYING COLORS


	13. get the fuck in the stairwell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Okay, so Plan B,” Wade said in the silence which followed.  
> “What’s Plan B?” Louis asked.   
> “I’ll tell in you in twenty seconds,” Wade told him, “In the meantime, get down.”

Domino wandered up the keypad outside the building and looked inquisitive and entertained as she tapped at it.

“How does she know the code?” Peter whispered into the comm.

“Oh, no. She doesn’t,” Wade chirped back. Peter gave wide eyes at Louis and he gave them back through his goggles.

“And we’re in,” Wade informed the group, “Thanks girl, can you get the door?”

“Sure thing,” Domino said.

What.

The fuck.

Just happened.

“Hi, did something just go right from the start?” Matt asked over the comms. “Or have we already been shot and is this purgatory?”

“Ooo, Imma go with purgatory. Red, take in your team,” Wade ordered. Matt hopped out of position and followed Domino to the fucking stair entrance she was holding open good naturedly. Castle, Little Spidey, and Cable followed him, one after the other. Dom looked inside the door and unlocked it. She waved back at Wade and pointed up at the higher floors to signal that they were in the stairwell. Wade waved back and gave her a thumbs-up. She closed the door behind her.

“Wade, this is the craziest thing that has ever happened to me,” Peter whispered. Wade patted his head.

“She’s basically a rockstar,” he said. “But it only works for her. She is there purely to balance out Red’s fucking curse, so we have a chance in hell at getting this right.”

Wade was so fucking smart.

They waited and admired Castle’s installation until the lights on Floor 3 flickered and went out. One of the windows burst under fire from rubber bullets. Castle and Cable at the very least had reached that floor.

“That’s our cue,” Wade said. They broke for the stairwell.

 

 

Even from the stairwell it was obvious that upstairs was madness. There was screaming and doors slamming and bullets cracking. The echoes didn’t help.

They gunned it up the stairs because they had to get behind Matt before he broke through to the fifth floor because as soon as Fisk caught wind of him below, it was almost for damn sure that he’d come down from his suite to finish the job he’d started at the warehouse.

Foggy didn’t deserve that.

They’d just gotten up to the stair door of the third floor when a guy came flying full tilt out of the entrance and into railing next to them; he pushed himself off and ran back onto the floor proper shouting. Peter pushed Louis forward to keep him from getting distracted.

They got to the fourth floor but had to cross the floor itself to get to the next staircase which picked up on the opposite side of the building. Castle and Little Spidey and Matt were there, antagonizing the shit out of a troop of guys straight out of a Macy’s suit catalogue. They were not going to let them through easy. Wade adopted the stance of a linebacker and took to charging his way through the crowd. Anyone who got in his way, he shoved off balance and left for Castle.

Peter shot a line of web to the ceiling and avoided the situation below altogether. Louis followed his lead. Matt was a little late in getting to the door because two guys had tag-teamed him.

There was something about the way people were crowding Matt which made it abundantly clear who Fisk had ordered them to focus on.

“Maybe you and Castle should switch floors?” Peter suggested as they tried to break the lock the guards had placed on the door. Wade shoved everyone back and shot every round in his pistol through the door around the handles. He punched his hand through and tore off the remnants of the handle on the other side.

Matt snapped to him, hyper-focused. He didn’t say anything, but Peter could practically see him vibrating out of his skin.

Dude, chill.

Wade pulled his hand out of the door and Matt kicked it open and was up the stairs in a flash, assaulting the handle of that door in seconds. Wade watched, impressed. Matt wasn’t going to get that door open without their help, but damn if he wasn’t trying.

“We need to let this guy off lead,” Wade said as one might say of an exciting racing dog. “Hold up, there Red, Spidey’s gonna help you out.”

Matt didn’t even respond to the inanity, just visibly rattled until Peter tore the handle off the door. He put his shoulder into it which cracked the handle on the other side off, and then Matt was off like a shot, body-slamming into the nearest five guys and going in for a fight before they even realized that they were participating.

Peter and Wade had to pause in awe at the entrance to the stairway while Louis and Dave tried to stamp down the anxiety.

“You know, I’m thinking we should caffeinate him more often,” Wade said. Matt took a guy down and started choking him with his thighs while disarming another guy and making him fall and break his nose on his own fist.

“Not entirely positive his heart could take it,” Peter noted. Then he shoved at Wade until they got back on track to the top floor.

 

 

Peter was expecting to be Hulk-smashed by the kingpin, which is why when they pushed on the door and found it unlocked, he almost called it a trap. The upper suite was almost entirely empty. Except that, standing in front of the spiderwebbed windows, was the biggest non-mutant person Peter had seen in his life.

It would have been more intimidating if the guy hadn’t adopted the “eye in the storm” evil villain stance.

 “Eye in the storm” was in the bottom fifteen evil villain stances, regardless of whose ranking system you were using. If Fisk had really wanted to scare them, he would have gone for “No questions, Hulk-Smash,” or simply “immediate execution of a loved one.”

But he didn’t because he was _chatty_.

Oho, big fucker, you are in for a surprise.

Wade, on the same wavelength, shoved Peter in delight. Peter shoved back to get into character. Wade flicked his ear.

Fisk turned towards them, completely ready to monologue, but faltered in the face of their rough-housing.

“Oh, hi!” Wade said, waving. “You wouldn’t happen to be the kingpin would you?”

“I wasn’t—” Fisk started.

“Expecting us?” Peter interrupted

“Expecting _you_ ,” Wade corrected.

“No, you’re right, expecting you,” Peter conceded.

“Who—” Fisk tried.

Wade burst in before he could finish the sentence.

“Are you?” he finished in a low, gruffly imitation of Fisk. It sounded more like Matt’s shitty Daredevil voice. He carried on, Tarzan-style, “Me, Deadpool. Him, Spiderman. Him Spiderman. Him, less good Spiderman.”

“I’m not Spiderman,” Dave snapped just as Louis said, “Dude, less good?”

It wasn’t the kind of reaction Fisk has evidently been hoping for. He frowned and opened his mouth, but Peter got there first.

“You aren’t my concern,” he said in his worst possible Fisk impression.

“No, Spidey, Jesus,” Wade snapped irritably, “It’s, ‘You don’t concern me.”

“No, no,” Peter tittered back, “It’s ‘this has nothing to do with you.”

“Oh my god, you’re so right,” Wade applauded. Peter couldn’t see them, but he knew the juniors were shell-shocked.

Fisk was getting good and annoyed.

“I have—”

“No business with you!” Wade and Peter shouted over top of him at top speed at the same time, like that one overly competitive couple at every board game night. Fisk sneered. They high-fived.

“Where is Daredevil?” Fisk snarled.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Wade said, “About six feet tall, red hat, artful stubble. A fucking sinful ass, am I right?”

“WHERE,” Fisk bellowed, already losing his cool. “I said WHERE, you incompetent cow.”

“Well,” Wade said, “Not with that attitude, you didn’t.”

That seemed to do just the trick. Fisk grabbed a chair and hurled it at them. Peter caught it with the web and hurled it back. It shattered over Fisk’s front, but didn’t slow him down. He snarled and stormed towards Wade. Wade wiggled in anticipation but stayed rooted to the spot. He dodged a handful of punches, and sliced a long stripe with a knife between Fisk’s knuckles. Then he shoved the guy off balance and brought out the swords. Peter and the others started joining in from all angles, but Fisk just kept advancing on Wade.

 “I will cleanse the city of people like you,” Fisk was snarling, “Even if I had to do it in blood.”

There was a sickening crunch as he got just too close and laid into Wade. They couldn’t drag him off. Wade went limp by the wall.

Peter heard one of the guys with him take a tiny, sharp inhale. He wanted to soothe them, they hadn’t seen Wade die before. But now was the not the time. Fisk seemed to realize that he’d killed his target sooner than he’d anticipated; high on the success, he dropped Wade’s body and rounded on the other three. Peter took first position.

“You’re brave, Spiderman, I commend you for that,” Fisk said. “You don’t have to go the same way as your friend, you know. There are other options. You could—”

Peter sprayed web over his mouth and he started choking.

“Christ, you are so fucking chatty,” he noted. The three of them went crashing forward.

 

 

Things did not go as planned.

But then, when had they ever?

Wade woke up in time to shock and then distract Fisk long enough for Peter and Dave to crawl out of the crater in the floor they’d been pounded into. Peter grabbed Louis from wreckage of the wall he’d become intimate with and made sure he could stand.

Wade was doing his damnedest, fighting with furniture, lamps, a vase, and even a cup of water, but it wasn’t quite enough. Dave was bleeding down his face, Peter shoved him towards the stairwell with instructions to get the fuck down to the bottom floor and call the police. Someone needed to call the fucking police.

He took the order, reluctant to leave the others, but ultimately resigned himself to his fate.

Between Wade and Louis and some spectacular web-work, they managed to hold Fisk off for long enough that Peter could just hear the wail of sirens in the distance. Then Fisk broke his fucking arm and he lost track of the world for a second.

Matt evidently caught wind of this from downstairs and shouted up through the comms.

“You need back up, up there?”

Wade snapped his head up, reminded that they had a fuckload of people beating the shit out of others downstairs.

“Oh yeah, if it isn’t too much trouble,” he called back.

It took Matt exactly no time at all to get to the entrance of the staircase. He let loose a piercing whistle which shocked Peter out of his own pain. Fisk saw him.

Everything stopped.

Matt waved cheerfully with his fingers and he vanished back through the entrance.

Fisk roared and went crashing right after him into the stairwell.

 “Okay, so Plan B,” Wade said in the silence which followed.

“What’s Plan B?” Louis asked.

“I’ll tell in you in twenty seconds,” Wade told him, “In the meantime, _get down._ ”

 

 

Things got a little bit hectic from there, although that might have been Peter’s broken arm speaking.

“EVERYONE GET THE FUCK INTO THE STAIRWELL” Wade was suddenly screaming into the comms, “ENGAGE ENGAGE ENGAGE.”

A chorus of confirmations answered him. They’d gotten down the second floor when he heard the others throwing themselves out of their rooms and rattling down the stairs. Wade kept demanding that Matt give them his location. All they got was his panting.

Peter couldn’t see anyone when he finally hit the bottom of the stairs, so they had to have left the building. Around the time Castle and Little Spidey collided with Dom and Cable at the bottom level, Matt seemed to remember that he was wearing a comm.

“I am going to be completely honest,” he shouted, “But I think I might be in a little over my head.”

Peter hadn’t heard Matt sound that stressed out in ages.

“Head for the water,” Wade commanded.

“Why the FUCK would I do that?” Matt shouted back.

“You gonna take him on a fucking date in the city?” Wade countered.

“Point taken,” Matt shouted back, “Little disoriented, though. Got a whole new concussion. Which way is water?”

“Head towards the loudest traffic, that’s 12th avenue,” Castle roared. “Don’t get hit.”

 “Jesus fucking—12th? Christ, this is how I go,” Matt puffed anxiously.

But they heard him skid and change direction. He started mumbling the Lord’s Prayer in between breaths.

“Everyone out and northwest,” Wade shouted in his soldier voice. Peter hadn’t heard it in a long-ass time. “Try to intercept them before Red meets the fishes.”

“Wait, I’m jumping?” Matt said. The blast of a horn told them he was in traffic. Peter crammed his arm into his chest and kicked up the speed. There was a weird sound in his comm and he couldn’t tell who it was. Then it hit him. It was Little Spidey, whimpering through an injury while she ran.

“Angel, stand down,” Peter snapped.

“No, I’m—”

“Stand the fuck down, it’s not worth it,” he said.

She didn’t answer for a moment.

“I’m so sorry,” she hiccupped.

“Don’t be sorry, honey, you did great,” Castle, of all people, grunted. Peter hoped she fell back.

 “Red, where the fuck are you?” Wade was shouting

There was no answer.

“Red, give us your loca—”

A horrible noise screamed across the comms. It was followed by gasp, then a wheeze and a sloshing sound.

“Red, are you in the fucking river?” Castle asked.

“Ya’ll said go to the fucking water,” Matt gasped.

“He with you?”

There was no answer.

Sirens were screeching around them. Peter had to leap over two police cars and then the riot that was traffic on 12th Avenue.

Damn, they were sure as hell making the news tonight.

“Double D?” he called.

Matt didn’t answer. The sloshing sound carried on, which was really fucking bad news. Matt didn’t have a whole lot of areas of weakness, but open water was one of them. He got disoriented and confused by the whole set of different sounds. If he went down and came up, he struggled to place where he was. Add a concussion onto that and they needed to get there fast.

“Matt, we need you to answer,” Peter said, hoping using his name would get a reaction.

There was another gasp and a splash and sloshing and then Matt coughed and coughed and coughed. Then the sloshing vanished again over the comms.

Oh fuck.

Oh god.

That fucker was trying to drown him.

Peter hit the edge of the pier just before Wade did. Matt was maybe two hundred feet out in the river. Peter couldn’t see him, but he could see Fisk, and the guy was truly doing the most to him out there. Matt needed help yesterday, but there was no way Peter could swim that far and back with a broken arm. He slapped his good arm onto his head and tried to focus.

Think.

Think. C’mon, Parker, this is when it really matters.

He looked up to reevaluate the situation and to try to wrap his arm to his chest in web when Wade went sailing past him right into the water. Castle stopped for just as long as it took to throw off his guns, then jumped in after. The cyborg guy followed suit.

Oh.

So, that’s why they’d brought the soldiers.

After a moment of awe and, honestly, envy at those guys’ ridiculously athletic swimming, Peter turned back to see Domino roll up with Louis hanging off her shoulder; she didn’t have even a hair out of place. She grinned at him.

“They steal your thunder?” she asked.

Peter looked out back at the trio. They’d already hit the other two and had liberated Matt from Fisk’s grip. Castle had gotten an arm around Fisk’s neck and was using it to hold him up while Cable did something to keep him from struggling. Apparently, Fisk hadn’t accounted for his signature Fisk-smash not working on unsolid ground. He tried to duck out of Castle’s grip in an alternative but was soon recaptured and deafened by Castle and Cable’s combined vulgarity. Wade appeared to be preoccupied with keeping Matt’s head above water.

“No, uh. Just seems like they’ve got the situation under control,” he said. Understatement of the year. The only thing stopping Frank Castle from drowning Fisk as they spoke was Wade assigning him the task of taking Matt back to shore at high volume.

Castle relented, but he didn’t go quietly.

Peter and Dom and Louis wandered over to the part of the pier Frank headed towards, dragging with him a half-drowned Matt, who, despite his close encounter with death and his recently lost helmet, was already upset that he wasn’t allowed to be part of the posse antagonizing Fisk. Castle was unhelpfully promising him that, next time, they’d get their chance.

Because of course those two idiots were already plotting their future offenses.

Peter and Louis helped Matt out of the water, then Castle. Matt laid out flat on the docks and reported he was going to nap for the five minutes it took the cops to follow them out there. Castle pinched his thigh and wouldn’t let him on account of the concussion.

Matt initiated his “fuck off” procedure—albeit a more stiff and wet version than usual. It involved rolling his body so that it faced opposite Castle and doing what he wanted to anyways. Castle kicked him in the ass and gave him shit about his caffeine spike wearing off too quickly. Matt accused him of wasting two of his five minutes of peace.

“So, I guess he’s okay?” Domino asked, watching the two squabble.

Peter watched Wade and Cable haul in their massive ugly fish. Fisk was bloody and barely conscious after his exciting encounter with three different generations of special forces. Wade and Cable were bickering like an old married couple on either side of him about what Peter could only presume was getting leverage in water. He wondered how Cable’s cyborg parts didn’t spark or short circuit, then looked down at his own arm and was increasingly glad he hadn’t jumped in.

A piercing siren assaulted them all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i rewrote this shit like 3 times i can't im done with this nonsense. one more chapter folx


	14. lower your expectations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Eventually you just get jaded or mentally ill,” he told them.   
> “Or both,” Wade added.   
> “Or both,” Peter conceded.   
> “This is the worst,” Little Spidey declared.

 

 

 

 

“So I’m gonna fail chemistry,” Little Spidey announced a few months after the showdown.

Louis suddenly became extremely fucking invested in his phone. Peter stopped in his tinkering with the web slinger to stare at her owlishly. Little Spidey slowly pulled her mask back on.

“Those are my feelings,” she said, “Thank you and good night.”

She leapt up to gun it out of there, but Peter lunged at the same second and caught a fistful of her suit. He pulled her slowly back over the edge of the building and held her at eye level.

“Over my dead fucking body.”

 

 

Fisk went to jail, blah blah blah. People turned themselves in, yada yada yada. The city was saved once more thanks to Spiderman. And Spiderman. And Spiderman. And Daredevil. And Daredevil. And Wade fucking Wilson. The press barely knew what to do with all of them, so they sure as fuck couldn’t handle Castle or Wade’s people. Karen said that Castle approved of this and that he’d left her a message to express these thoughts more clearly. She handed Peter a grimy envelope, inside of which was a four-folded paper printout of a huge smiley emoji. Castle had very helpfully drawn a little shirt with a skull on it under the giant head to clarify who this mysterious smiley man was.

Good for you, old man. Baby steps towards proper texting etiquette. Let’s maybe graduate from carrier-pigeon now.

But anyways, yeah, that was fun. Putting away a big baddie was always pretty satisfying, but there was a lot still going on. Fisk being in jail didn’t stop shit from keeping on keeping shitty.

That’s not how crime works.

If you want to stop crime for realsies, you gotta solve the underlying issues first. And Spiderman had only so much influence on institutional racism and social inequality. Spiderman couldn’t exactly go on the record and say “I’ve caught these men and would like you to please put them in jail. Although, I understand that that will be difficult because you are very busy filling them with black men on minor offenses, so maybe let’s have a discussion around that.”

No.

Just.

It wasn’t gonna happen.

Not because Peter wasn’t game to, but because if Spiderman went on the record saying any fucking thing it would be twisted into a million different, interesting, but ultimately wrong iterations. If he then spent his time trying to correct all those lovable but ludicrous iterations, that whole secret identity thing? Yeah, bye bye.

Little Spidey and Louis and Dave were more than a little confounded by this, having thought that the arrest of Fisk meant the end of crime in the city. Dave in particular was very disappointed, even after Matt told him that the best part of people reoffending was the friendships you made along the way. Matt had a handful of guys who just sighed and turned around, hands up when they bumped into him and this brought him no small among of joy. Peter had a few of his own like this, where the encounters had become less violent over time and more “daggnabbit, you caught me again you pesky wabbit.” Wade had none such people because Wade was horrifying and had trouble using healthy communication.

Peter use the opportunity to officially welcome the three to true super/vigilante-hood.

“Eventually you just get jaded or mentally ill,” he told them.

“Or both,” Wade added.

“Or both,” Peter conceded.

“This is the worst,” Little Spidey declared.

 

 

As a reward for their hard work and dedication, Peter upgraded their shitty suits to real ones. He’d been making his own suits for years by that point, had stolen the blueprints off Mr. Stark at eighteen and had never looked back, despite the old man’s griping. He made the suits after his shift at the lab ended. It took a few weeks and he had to surreptitiously teach both Spideys how to use a voice activated computer (what this actually looked like was him giving them a matching game on a tablet with the touch sensitivity turned off and offering a prize of $20 and bragging rights to the winner. It didn’t take long for them to get used to it), but he got there in the end.

He begged Matt for the blueprints for his armor, but he didn’t have them and wasn’t willing to give them up even if he could have. Matt had never trusted Peter to make his armor before and he sure was fuck wasn’t about to start. He did not care about Peter’s Masters of Science. He did not care about Peter’s sense of self-worth. He had his man and would accept the work of no one else. So Peter improvised a half-way decent suit for Dave based on what he could remember of the Daredevil suit. He cut back on the armor and added in some more flexibility since Dave didn’t run towards knives and bullets like Matt did.

He presented the three of them with the suits just as they were on the verge of being good and jaded about the shitshow that continued to be the city. There was a new guy running around selling drugs that made you hallucinate and think you were invincible. It had produced a series of spectacular, but unbelievably stupid attempted assaults, like the guy who thought that bungee-jumping was really the upcoming way of stealing people’s money.

“This is the best,” Little Spidey told him in her new suit. She named her computer Carlita. Louis named his Bo. Dave begged Peter to take his out.

He did but did so as judgmentally as possible to remind Dave of how old he was.

 

 

While Wade had escaped the whole showdown fairly unscathed and he and his buddies had fucked off to god knows where to do god knows what, shortly thereafter, Matt had gotten in big trouble with Foggy for having nearly gotten hit by a car and subsequently drowned by Wilson Fisk. Foggy barred him from returning to New York for at least twelve months. Matt didn’t argue because, over the years, he’d learned exactly where he stood with Foggy and that was under his fucking heel.

Matt said that they were looking into maybe opening an office back in the city, but they needed to figure out some staffing/partner stuff first. Two firms was kind of a commitment and Foggy wouldn’t even agree to marry him at this point. Peter was pretty sure that had much more to do with Foggy being totally fine with the domestic partnership they already had, but that had been a hasty affair (involving someone’s blood on someone else’s hands) and Matt had a Catholic bug up his ass about marriage and would not let this go. Foggy reported that Matt’s new favorite thing post-near-death-experience was to watch Say Yes to the Dress and make Foggy describe every dress before declaring them all hideous and pouting, clutching whatever pillow he’d found aggressively. Foggy was more than capable of taking these hints but was studiously ignoring all of them.

Besides being intimidated by the commitment of a multi-state firm, Foggy, having served his time in the New York legal system, wanted to stay as far away from that shit as possible. He’d also threatened Matt with a guide dog if he tried to split his time between New York and San Francisco.

If they did open a new firm in the city, it seemed much more likely that they’d just help get another group going.

It was kind of disappointing, but Peter had resolved to be happy for them. It helped that when Matt had left for San Francisco, he’d wrapped Peter in a tight hug.

“I’m so fucking proud of you,” he’d said, while Peter tried to not burst into sobs in his shoulder, “There’s no greater gift than the moment when a student surpasses their teacher.”

Peter might have lost it a teeny weeny bit then, but hey, it was an airport. Everyone cries at airports.

Matt had ruffled his hair sympathetically, made Peter promise to come visit them in SF and then gone to go pick a fight with the TSA.

When he got back to San Francisco, he cheerfully reported that he’d been interrogated for two hours, had missed his flight, and was suing the TSA for discrimination.

Foggy told them exhaustedly that the TSA hadn’t taken Matt seriously when he said he was a lawyer and now they had all this fucking paperwork because Matt was a noncompliant idiot.

So things were back to business as usual over at Nelson & Murdock Vers. 2.0.

 

 

Peter had taken it upon himself to mentor all his Spidermans. Mr. Stark told him it was so much more trouble than it was worth, and then after he was ordered to sleep by Miss Potts, Peter removed the entire contents of his personal lab into another room. He’d scrubbed the place spotless and had then gone to get an iced coffee and wait for the reaction.

It did not disappoint.

He’d gone on to drill the fuck out of Little Spidey until he was damn sure she was going to pass her chemistry test. She told him she’d be happy with a D+. He told her that she’d better be happy with a B or better or so help him god, he was going to tutor her privately.

It was a surprisingly effective threat. She brought back a test with 88% on it, beaming, and Peter looked at it, and then her and then it. He demanded to know why the fuck she was passing chemistry now but failing English.

Little Spidey hadn’t known what she’d signed up for.

Louis thought he’d escaped this kind of scrutiny until Peter found out that he had a crush.

Peter grinned wide at him and asked if she knew he was Spiderman. Louis told him to mind his own fucking business. Peter and Little Spidey then went on a covert mission to find out about this crush. They were currently in a standoff with Louis refusing to tell them who the gal was and Peter abusing his education and life experience to hack Louis’s shit and find out himself. Louis told him if he did that, he’d go ask Ned for Peter’s high school pictures. It was an insurmountable impasse.

 

 

Everything turned upside down again when Little Spidey sent a frantic text to the group saying that she’d been found out on her patrol by some kid and Peter and Louis needed to come down to a specific park in Brooklyn _yesterday, assholes_.

Peter pounded his head against the metal poles of the play tower in the park and while gritting out: “I have told you—both of you—a _thousand times_ not to eat at street level. A thousands times, girl. A thousand.”

“Bitch, mama wanted a burrito,” Little Spidey snapped, “So mama was getting a burrito. You wanna get between me and my uterus?”

“I wish I could say they aren’t always like this,” Louis told the kid, “But they are always like this.”

The reason that this was extra bad was because this kid had seen Little Spidey in the dark and not realized that she was a head shorter than the original Spidey and had asked her if he could talk to her about something personal. She’d been distracted and said “sure, whatevs, after I get food,” and now they were all standing there because this child had been _bitten by a fucking spider_ and could now walk on walls. He was scared shitless, poor thing.

“Dude, you said that you _weren’t_ bitten by a radioactive spider,” Little Spidey accused. Peter gave her the bitchiest look he could muster.

“I _said_ it wasn’t a radioactive spider. I didn’t say it wasn’t a genetically modified spider.”

“What the fuck, dude?”

“What the fuck do you want from me, girl?”

“Your tragic backstory, we have earned your tragic backstory.”

“I am so sorry they are like this, but we’re gonna help you,” Louis told the kid, who was watching them trying to figure out if he’d made a huge mistake.

 

 

Little baby Miles was Peter’s favorite and he made this known to Little Spidey at every possible opportunity. Miles was not amused. He didn’t want to fight crime, he said after the next few weeks. He just wanted to be normal. And then Peter had to go lay on the ground and laugh hysterically for a little while because, oh honey, you’ve done it now.

“Are you sure? Really sure? The most sure? 150% out of 100 sure?” he prodded. Miles stared at him.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Answer the question, Bitsy,” Peter demanded. Miles hated this moniker about as much as Little Spidey loved it.

 “Um? Yes—no—I don’t know?”

“Alright, then go home,” Peter told him firmly. Miles was affronted.

“What just drop everything after all this?” ‘All this’ was Peter making him train with the other two and inflicting his mother-henning upon the kid.

“Yeah, pretty much. Go on,” Peter goaded.

“No,” Miles snapped, “Why would I—I don’t--”

Peter waited. He gestured in the direction of Brooklyn.

“Go on, we aren’t stopping you. Just take off the suit, it’s totally fine. We aren’t judging you, this shit is hard. It’s not for everyone. You don’t have to be Spiderman just because the universe wants you to be Spiderman. Because other people want you to be Spiderman.”

Miles looked off towards Brooklyn, then up at Peter and then back towards Brooklyn. He was getting upset, his lower lip trembling. The wind was high, and the air was alternatively warm, then cold from the retreating summer currents.

Peter could remember what it had felt like to seriously make that choice. It wasn’t on a rooftop, it wasn’t surrounded by other people. For him that choice had come staring out at the wreckage splayed out over Coney Island. The Vulture subdued and out of sight. Smoke billowing. Wood smoldering. Staring but not seeing at the debris on the beach. Seeing but not seeing the ocean. That choice had come in the moment of screeching silence in his head, trapped under tons of weight from a building, screaming and crying, pinned to the earth. It felt like it would last forever.

He caught Miles’s wrist and pulled him down to sit with him next to the edge of the building. He let the kid wipe at his face and hiccup, but he didn’t touch him after relinquishing his wrist.

“I was your age when I made Spiderman,” he told him, “But I wasn’t really Spiderman until a whole year after that.”

Miles sniffed and tried to look at him. Peter pulled off his mask so that they could have this conversation as people, real people. As the person he’d needed Mr. Stark to be when he was just starting, but who Mr. Stark hadn’t been until after he’d found himself. The person he’d found in Wade and Matt when they’d stood up and reached out that first time all those years ago when he’d been trapped between Mr. Stark, the Avengers, and complete isolation.

“Someone tried to hurt people who mattered to me and I thought I was powerless to stop it,” Peter said, “But I stood up anyways and it was so, so, _so_ scary, Miles. I was so scared. I cried for days, I was scared of heights, I got and I still have really bad anxiety from that to this day.”

Miles had settled down somewhat and was listening closely, tears still shining in the rims of his eyes. Little Spidey crept over and sat down next to them, Louis followed suit. Peter gave him a little smile.

“I’m not perfect, these guys can attest to that. None of us are. Not Iron Man, not the Black Widow, not even Captain America. Steve drinks his coffee black, Miles. Think about that. A person’s coffee is a reflection of their soul.”

It got him the chuckle he was going for.

Peter reached out, telegraphing his movements carefully, and touched Miles’s knee. The kid didn’t move away.

“My uncle died when I was your age,” he said, “He was killed by some petty criminal shithead with a knife. They just fucking stabbed him. He died in my arms, bled out way before the ambulance got there. He raised me. He was everything to me. And when he was dying, when I was fourteen years old, holding the life of this man, he told me that with great power comes great responsibility. He knew; I don’t know how, I hadn’t told him, but he knew. And then he told me he loved me and then he fucking died in the fucking street and no one cared, no one helped us.”

He had to pause to collect himself. He scrubbed his face. He hadn’t told anyone the story like this before. Hadn’t had to. It hurt worse than any other way. But the kid deserved to know that it wasn’t an easy choice and that was fucking okay. Angel and Louis deserved to know, they’d earned their stripes. They’d earned his trust.

“If you don’t want to do this, Miles--Angel, Louis, you too--if you don’t want this responsibility, I’m not going to ask you to take it. Responsibility is a choice; no one tells you this shit, but it’s a choice and you live with the consequences. And I don’t have a life without Spiderman anymore. I can’t do it, I’ve tried, and it just feels fucking empty and that’s crazy. That’s wrong. That’s not healthy, but we’re all like this. Everyone, talk to anyone. I’ll give you everyone’s numbers, you can ask whoever you want, do some research, use my name, I don’t care. Just, know that if you do, do this, I’m not gonna let you, I won’t let any of you fall.

I promise you, Miles, if you get scared, you’ve got people here. You’ve got me, you’ve got these two, and you’ve got all the idiots on Team Red you haven’t even met yet. You won’t be alone like I was. You might hate that later, hell, you might hate me later, but I won’t let you be alone like I was.”

Miles was quiet for a long time, as were the others. Peter didn’t push him.

“Can I try for a little bit longer?” Miles asked quietly.

“Nah, you’re out little man,” Little Spidey told him. Louis whacked her shoulder and glared. It made Miles laugh again.

“I want to try some more and then I’ll decide,” he said more confidently.

“Atta boy, use the scientific method,” Peter said. He popped up out of his cross-legged seat. “Great, that’s settled. I am all emotioned out. I’m going to go drown my feelings in alcohol and meaningless hook ups now, so if you’ll excuse me.”

“You’re watching Star Trek with Ned, don’t play,” Little Spidey spat at him. He leveled a finger at her.

“First of all, you get my tragic backstory and this is how you treat me? Second of all, we are watching Star Trek with booze. And third of all, I could have meaningless sex if I wanted to.”

“But you don’t.”

“But I don’t.”

“Because no one will bang your nerd ass or?”

“Because I have a deep and fulfilling love for science and no one will ever get between us.”

“So what I’m hearing is that you have a crush.”

Louis perked right the hell up.

“Sorry, what was that? Did I hear a secret?”

“I don’t have a crush.”

“Who’s MJ?”

“Why are you talking to Ned? Stop talking to Ned, he doesn’t do well under pressure.”

“Do you have a crush on Ned?”

“What. No.”

“Are you sure? Or is it Mr. Stark? Is ‘science’ code for Mr. Stark?”

“Angel, I’m about to whoop your ass.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is it folx! 
> 
> Thank you so much for sticking with me on this wild ride. Thanks especially to those who commented and kept me going along the way!   
> I've talked to some folx about potentially throwing together the scraps of these chapters which didn't quite make the cut or the stuff I've written on the side of this verse, so keep your eye out for that if you're interested.

**Author's Note:**

> the timeline looks like this: 
> 
> Peter is 25; he did 4 years of undergrad at CUNY, took a year off to work, then went back for his Master's at 23. He's just finishing up at Cornell, with one more semester left. He was Spiderman every break until the last winter break, then stopped because he knew the pressure was on to complete his final project (I'm calling this a thesis but many M.S. programs have their students do projects instead.)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Inimitable [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15302268) by [MidnightMew](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightMew/pseuds/MidnightMew)




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